ded through Medina, along the banks of the Gambia. With so
strong a party, he was no longer dependent on the protection of the
petty kings and mansas, but the Africans seeing him so well provided,
thought he had now no claim on their hospitality; on the contrary,
they seized every opportunity to obtain some of the valuable articles
which they saw in his possession. Thefts were practised in the most
audacious manner; the kings drove a hard bargain for presents; at one
place, the women, with immense labour had emptied all the wells, that
they might derive an advantage from selling the water. Submitting
quietly to these little annoyances, Mr. Park proceeded along the
Gambia till he saw it flowing from the south, between the hills of
Foota Jalla and a high mountain called Mueianta. Turning his face
almost due west, he passed the streams of the Ba Lee, the Ba Ting,
and the Ba Woollima, the three principal tributaries of the Senegal.
His change of direction led him through a tract much more pleasing,
than that passed in his dreary return through the Jallonka
wilderness. The villages, built in delightful mountain glens, and
looking from their elevated precipices over a great extent of wooded
plain, appeared romantic beyond any thing he had ever seen. The rocks
near Sullo, assumed every possible diversity of form, towering like
ruined castles, spires and pyramids. One mass of granite so strongly
resembled the remains of a gothic abbey, with its niches: and ruined
staircase, that it required some time to satisfy him of its being
composed wholly of natural stone. The crossing of the river, now
considerably swelled, was attended with many difficulties, and in one
of them Isaaco, the guide, was nearly devoured by a crocodile.

It was near Satadoo, soon after passing the Faleme, that the party
experienced the first tornado, which marking the commencement of the
rainy season, proved for them the "beginning of sorrows." In these
tornadoes, violent storms of thunder and lightning are followed by
deluges of rain, which cover the ground three feet deep, and have a
peculiarly malignant influence on European constitutions. In three
days twelve men were on the sick-list; the natives, as they saw the
strength of the expedition decline, became more bold and frequent in
their predatory attacks. At Gambia attempts were made to overpower by
main force the whole party, and seize all they possessed; but, by
merely presenting their muskets, the ass