to sleep, but was affected with a deep convulsive respiration, like
constant sighing: and what alarmed me still more, a dimness of sight, and
a tendency to faint when I attempted to sit up. These symptoms did not go
off until some time after I had received nourishment.

We had been for some days in daily expectation of Ali's return from
Saheel (or the north country) with his wife Fatima. In the meanwhile
Mansong, King of Bambarra, as I have related in Chapter VIII, had sent to
Ali for a party of horse to assist in storming Gedingooma. With this
demand Ali had not only refused to comply, but had treated the messengers
with great haughtiness and contempt; upon which Mansong gave up all
thoughts of taking the town, and prepared to chastise Ali for his
contumacy.

Things were in this situation when, on the 29th of April, a messenger
arrived at Benowm, with the disagreeable intelligence that the Bambarra
army was approaching the frontiers of Ludamar. This threw the whole
country into confusion; and in the afternoon Ali's son, with about twenty
horsemen, arrived at Benowm. He ordered all the cattle to be driven away
immediately, all the tents to be struck, and the people to hold
themselves in readiness to depart at daylight the next morning.

April 30th. At daybreak the whole camp was in motion. The baggage was
carried upon bullocks, the two tent poles being placed one on each side,
and the different wooden articles of the tent distributed in like manner;
the tent cloth was thrown over all, and upon this was commonly placed one
or two women, for the Moorish women are very bad walkers. The king's
favourite concubines rode upon camels, with a saddle of a particular
construction, and a canopy to shelter them from the sun. We proceeded to
the northward until noon, when the king's son ordered the whole company,