"I now shall send you a short account of Mr. Richardson's
death, as far as I was able to make out the circumstances
from his servant. Mr. Richardson is said to have left Zinder
in the best health, though it is probable that he felt
already very weak while he was there: for, according to the
man whom he hired in Zinder as his dragoman, he had, while
there, a dream that a bird came down from the sky, and when
sitting on the branch of a tree, the branch broke off and
the bird fell down to the earth. Mr. Richardson being very
much affected by this dream, went to a man who from a huge
book explains to the people their dreams. On the man's
telling him that his dream meant death, he seems really to
have anticipated that he would not reach the principal
object of his journey. But, nevertheless, he seemed to be
quite well, mounting even the horse which the Governor of
Zinder had made him a present of, as far as Minyo, when he
begged the Governor to give him a camel, which he mounted
thenceforward. He felt notoriously ill in Kadalebria, eleven
or twelve days' journey from here (Kuka); and he is said by
his servant to have taken different kinds of medicines, one
after the other: from which you may conclude that he did not
know himself what was his illness. Mr. Richardson never
could bear the sun, and the sun being very powerful at this
time of the year, it must have affected him very much.
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