ye, said in a low but
deeply affecting tone, 'My dear Richard, if you had not been with me,
I should have died long ago. I can only thank you with my latest
breath for your kindness and attachment to me, and if I could have
lived to return with you, you should have been placed beyond the
reach of want, but God will reward you.'" He survived some days, and
appeared even to rally a little, but one morning, Lander was alarmed
by a peculiar rattling sound in his throat, and hastening to the
bed-side found him sitting up, and staring wildly around; some
indistinct words quivered on his lips, he strove but ineffectually to
give them utterance, and expired without a struggle or a sigh.

Bello seems to have repented in some degree of his harsh conduct,
especially after the news arrived of a great victory gained by his
troops over the sultan of Bornou. He allowed Lander to perform the
funeral obsequies with every mark of respect, agreeably to the
sultan's own directions at Jungavie, a small village on a rising
ground, about five miles to the S. E. of Sockatoo. Lander performed
the last sad office of reading the English service over the remains
of his generous and intrepid master; a house was erected over his
grave;

"And he was left alone in his glory."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Lander may now be said to be in the interior of Africa, a solitary
wanderer, dependent entirely on his own resources, at the same time
that he received from sultan Bello, all the requisite means to enable
him to return to his native country, allowing him to choose his own
road, though advising him to prefer that which led through the great
Desert, but Lander having already had many dealings with the Arabs,
preferred the track through the negro countries.

On arriving at Kano, on his return route, Lander formed a spirited
and highly laudable design, which proved him to be possessed of a
mind much superior to his station, and this was nothing less than an
attempt to resolve the great question, respecting the termination of
the Niger, which he hoped to effect by proceeding to Funda, and
thence to Benin by water. Striking off to the eastward of the route,
on which, in company with his late master, he had reached Kano, he
passed several walled towns, all inhabited by natives of Houssa,
tributary to the Fellatas, and early on the third day from Bebajie,
(as he spells it,) arrived at the foot of a high craggy mountain,
called Almena, from a ruined town said