ined that their
treacherous friends should not obtain possession of the body of their
murdered leader, for before the sailors could arrive at the spot
where the deceased general lay, his indignant and patriotic
companions had carried his body away. On following these creatures to
their haunts in the recessess of the forest, places were found, where
the branches had been so intertwined, and the ground beaten so
smoothly, as to make it rather difficult to believe that the labour
had not been accomplished by human hands.
On the 26th of January, Jobson arrived at Tenda, and he immediately
despatched a messenger to Buckar Sano, the chief merchant on the
Gambia, who soon after arrived with a stock of provisions, which he
disposed of at reasonable prices. In return for the promptitude, with
which Buckar Sano had replied to his message, Jobson treated him with
the greatest hospitality, placing before him the brandy bottle as the
most important object of the entertainment. Buckar Sano seemed by no
means unwilling to consider it in that character, for he paid so many
visitations to it that he became so intoxicated, that he lay during
the whole of the night dead drunk in the boat. Buckar Sano, however,
showed by his subsequent conduct, that drunkenness was not a vice, to
which he was naturally addicted, and that the strength of the spirit
had crept upon him, before he was aware of the consequences that were
likely to ensue. On any subsequent occasion, when the brandy bottle
was tendered to him, he would take a glass, but on being pressed to
repeat it, he would shake his head with apparent tokens of disgust;
after the exchange of some presents, and many ridiculous ceremonies,
Buckar Sano was proclaimed the white man's alchade, or mercantile
agent. Jobson had, however, some reason to doubt his good faith, from
the accounts which he gave of a city four months journey in the
interior, the roofs of the houses of which were covered with sheets
of gold. It must, however, be considered, in exculpation of the
supposed exaggerated accounts of Buckar Sano, that the Europeans at
that time possessed a very circumscribed knowledge of the extent of
the interior of Africa, and that a four months journey, to a
particular city, would not be looked upon at the time as
transgressing the bounds of truth. It is most probable that Buckar
Sano alluded to Timbuctoo, a place that has given rise to more
extraordinary conjectures, and respecting which, mor
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