Travels in the Africa (English Edition)

This advice was certainly well meant on the part of the king, and perhaps
I was to blame in not following it; but I reflected that the hot months
were approaching, and I dreaded the thoughts of spending the rainy season
in the interior of Africa. These considerations, and the aversion I felt
at the idea of returning without having made a greater progress in
discovery, made sue determine to go forward; and though the king could
not give me a guide to Bambarra, I begged that he would allow a man to
accompany me as near the frontiers of his kingdom as was consistent with
safety. Finding that I was determined to proceed, the king told me that
one route still remained, but that, he said, was by no means free from
danger—which was to go from Kaarta into the Moorish kingdom of Ludamar,
from whence I might pass by a circuitous route into Bambarra. If I
wished to follow this route he would appoint people to conduct me to
Jarra, the frontier town of Ludamar. He then inquired very particularly
how I had been treated since I had left the Gambia, and asked, in a
jocular way, how many slaves I expected to carry home with me on my
return.