that we cannot recollect the name of this foreign officer, which we should
take particular pleasure in publishing; but since time has effaced it from
our memory, we will at least publish his zeal and noble efforts, which are
an unquestionable title to the gratitude of every man of feeling. At last,
after the most cruel sufferings and privations, the unfortunate men who
composed the crews of the great-boat, and of that which we called the
Senegal boat, twenty-five men from the long-boat, and fifteen persons from
the pirogue, arrived at Saint Louis, on the 13th of July, at seven o'clock
in the evening, after having wandered above five whole days, in the midst
of these frightful deserts, which on all sides presented to their eyes only
the most profound solitude, and the prospect of inevitable destruction.

During their progress, they had to struggle with the most dreadful extremes
of hunger and thirst; the latter was such, that the first time that several
of them discovered water in the desert, such selfishness was manifested
that those who had found these beneficent springs, knelt down four or five
together, near the hole which they had just dug, and there, with their eyes
fixed on the water, made signs to their comrades not to approach them; that
they had found the springs, and that they alone had a right to drink at
them; it was not till after the most urgent supplications that they granted
a little water to their wretched companions, who were consumed by a raging
thirst. When they met with any Moors, they obtained some assistance from
them; but these barbarians carried their inhumanity so far as to refuse to
shew them the springs which are scattered along the shore: sordid avarice
made them act in this manner to these unhappy people; for when the latter
had passed a well, the Moors drew water from it, which they sold to them at
a gourd for a glass; they exacted the same price for a small handful of
millet. When the brig approached the coast, to assist these unfortunate
men, a great many of the natives of the country immediately crowned the
heights; their number was so great, that it caused some fear in the French,