As we advanced, about noon, a small group appeared ahead. A person of
consequence from Seloufeeat, known to our escort, was coming to meet us.
He advanced cordially, and told us that he had determined to be our
protection. We were sorry that any such aid was necessary; but it
appeared from his report that there were more people collecting to
attack the Christians, and get a share of their spoils. In the evening
we encamped in an open space clear of the trees, where we could see all
around us, and use our arms if necessary. Scarcely were we established
when a troop of fifty men came near in a threatening manner, but did not
attack us. After dark, they increased to about a hundred. They consisted
of the sheikhs of the districts, with their followers and lawless men
scraped together from various quarters. Meanwhile our escort, who were
anxious for their own safety as well as ours, had sent on to the City of
Marabouts, Tintaghoda, and had prevailed on several of these holy men to
protect them and us. The night was spent in conference instead of in
repose. The hostile Sheikhs told our marabouts that they did not come to
harm us, but to oblige us to become Muslims, for no infidel had ever, or
ever should, pass through their country. This proposition was at once,
as a matter of business and profession, approved of by our protecting
marabouts. What priest ever shrunk from the prospect of a conversion?
Matters having come to this point, our escort, camel-drivers and
servants, could not but communicate to us the demand made--namely, that
we should change our religion or return by the way we had come.
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