over, and that part of the country becomes burnt up and barren.

This wandering and restless way of life, while it inures them to
hardships, strengthens at the same time the bonds of their little
society, and creates in them an aversion towards strangers, which is
almost insurmountable. Cut off from all intercourse with civilized
nations, and boasting an advantage over the Negroes, by possessing,
though in a very limited degree, the knowledge of letters, they are at
once the vainest and proudest, and perhaps the most bigotted, ferocious,
and intolerant of all the nations on the earth, combining in their
character the blind superstition of the Negro, with the savage cruelty
and treachery of the Arab.

It is probable that many of them had never beheld a white man before my
arrival at Benowm; but they had all been taught to regard the Christian
name with inconceivable abhorrence, and to consider it nearly as lawful
to murder a European as it would be to kill a dog. The melancholy fate of
Major Houghton, and the treatment I experienced during my confinement
among them, will, I trust, serve as a warning to future travellers to
avoid this inhospitable district.

The reader may probably have expected from me a more detailed and copious
account of the manners, customs, superstitions, and prejudices of this
secluded and singular people; but it must not be forgotten, that the
wretchedness of my situation among them afforded me but few opportunities
of collecting information. Some particulars, however, might be added in
this place; but being equally applicable to the Negroes of the southward,
they will appear in a subsequent page.