During the whole day a constant succession of visitors came to pay their compliments o f condolence, and I seriously thought that, with such an accession of evils, we should in a few days more be hurried to our graves. Yussuf and Hadje Mahmoud attended on us, as did our little girl, who was our principal nurse, and was very humane and carefuL We lay ten days in this state, and during that time Yussuf by my desire, sold about lOOlbs. o f our powder, so that we now again obtained a little money; but we were too ill to enjoy any benefit which our riches might procure us. Mr. Ritchie’s horse, which had never recovered its flesh since coming from Tripoli, and which was very old, I sold, through the medium of Yussuf for seventy dollars, to the Sultan. By the sale of many trifles, which the Sultan no longer made an objection to our disposing of, I cleared, after paying my debts, about 150 dollars, including the money for the horse and powder, and now determined, should I recover, on penetrating still farther to the southward of Morzouk, though incapable o f making such progress as I wished, from not possessing sufficient funds for the purpose. I found myself under tfie absolute necessity of soon returning to England to receive instructions for my further proceedings (supposing me still to be employed on the mission), for although money for the additional grant of d§1000 could have been procured from Tripoli, much time must have elapsed before I could have obtained i t ; and even then, I must have gone in person for it. I had no one whom in my absence I could have left in charge of my goods at Morzouk, Belford being too sick and helpless either to keep guard over them, or to remain alone in that place. Added to this, ¿§1000 was a sum by no means adequate to carry me through Africa; as it would be requisite to purchase merchandise totally different from that which had already been provided, and without which I could not have made my way. Belford, from his weak state, could not accompany me far, and to proceed alone would have been actual madness, until the necessary arrangements for my future operations, and regulations as to pecuniary matters had been fully understood and arranged. Under all these circumstances, therefore, and to my great regret, I could only resolve on a short progress into the Interior. As soon as we recovered sufficient strength to get up stairs, I opened Mr. Ritchie’s sitting-room, where we found only a few scattered papers, an unfinished journal, and some letters. These I collected, and in Belford’s presence burnt all which were private; but every other document bearing Mr. Ritchie’s handwriting I carefully preserved. We were both much astonished at his having left so few memoranda, as we felt confident, that though for many months he had, from repeated illness, been unable to write, that at least, prior to his arrival in Morzouk, he must have made many notes, as well as composed a regular journal. I knew that he had always trusted much to his singularly retentive memory, and was also aware that he expressed great impatience for the arrival of more cool weather, when he might, with less inconvenience, eommit his ideas to paper; and these reasons might probably account for his having left so few mementos of the scientific mind with which he certainly was gifted. I t is also to be regretted that Mr. Ritchie, during his illnesses, would never avail himself of my repeated offers to take down in writing any observations which he might have considered worthy of n o te ; and from this unfortunate circumstance much, very much valuable information has been lost. I caused all the chests of merchandise to be removed into our large room, and with Belford’s assistance opened them, in order to ascertain their contents. They had been packed before my arrival in Tripoli, and Mr. Ritchie had determined that they should not c c 2
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