information respecting them.

The English envoy had money to buy us provisions. He informed us that we
had still three days march to the Senegal. We imagined that we were nearer
to it; the most fatigued were terrified at this great distance. We slept
all together on the sand. Nobody was suffered to go to a distance for fear
of the lions, which were said to haunt this country. This fear did not at
all alarm me, nor hinder me from sleeping pretty well.

On the 11th of July, after having walked from one o'clock in the morning
till seven, we arrived at a place where the Englishman expected to meet
with an ox. By some misunderstanding there was none; we were obliged _to
pinch our bellies_: but we had a little water.

The heat was insupportable; the sun was already scorching. We halted on the
white sand of these downs, as being more wholesome for a resting place than
the sand, wetted by the sea-water. But this sand was so hot, that even the
hands could not endure it. Towards noon we were broiled by the beams of the
sun darting perpendicularly upon our heads. I found no remedy, except in a
creeping plant, which grew here and there on the moving sand. I set up some
old stalks, and spread over them my coat and some leaves: thus I put my
head in the shade; the rest of my body was roasted. The wind overturned,
twenty times, my slight scaffolding.

Meantime, this Englishman was gone, on his camel, to see after an ox. He
did not return till four or five o'clock: when he informed us that we
should find this animal, after we had proceeded some hours. After a most
painful march, till night, we, in fact, met with an ox which was small, but
tolerably fat. We looked at some distance from the sea, for a place where
there was supposed to be a spring. It was only a hole, which the Moors had
left a few hours before. Here we fixed ourselves, a dozen fires were
lighted around us. A negro twisted the neck of the ox, as we should have
done that of a fowl. In five minutes it was flayed and cut into pieces,
which we toasted on the points of our swords or sabres. Every one devoured
his portion.

After this slight repast, we all lay down to sleep. I was not able to
sleep: the tiresome buzzing of the mosquitoes, and their cruel stings,
prevented me, though I was so much in need of repose.

On the 12th, we resumed our march at three o'clock in the morning. I was
indisposed; and to knock me up entirely, we had to walk over the moving
sand of the p