sents to be so rigidly enforced. According to Riley, the Mahommedans have a separate town assigned to them; a circumstance which might possibly escape the unobserving eye of the present traveller.

CHAPTER XI.

RILEY'S NARRATIVE.

Shipwreck.-Captivity.-Deliverance.—Sidi Ishem.-Narrative of Sidi Hamet.-Adventures in the Desert.-Tombuctoo.Wassanah.

JAMES RILEY, master and supercargo of the brig Commerce of Hartford, sailed from New Orleans on the 24th June 1815, and arrived at Gibraltar on the 9th of August. From that place he set sail on the 23d for the Cape de Verd islands. In passing the Canaries the sea began to run high, and the weather became so dark and foggy, that they could not discern their track. On the 28th, near Cape Bojador as it afterwards proved, the vessel struck; it soon began to fill with water, and seemed every moment in danger of going to pieces. The crew, therefore, put out the long-boat, and having placed on board of it the most valuable articles, reached with difficulty the shore. They were soon joined by an Arab family, consisting of a man, two wives, and five or six children. The man resembled an oranoutang rather than a human being; and the

whole party presented a compound of ugliness, misery, and ferocity. They soon began an indiscriminate plunder, which Riley did not resist, dreading that, if enraged, they might soon collect more strength. The Arabs emptied trunks, boxes, chests; they cut the beds, and valuing only the cloth, amused themselves with seeing the feathers fly before the wind. Some fine silk lace veils and handkerchiefs they wrapt round their legs, or about their heads like turbans. After this visitation the crew again turned their eyes to the boat, with difficulty got it out again to sea, and reached the wreck, which was still above water. Soon after an augmented body of Arabs made their appearance, and by friendly signs invited the captain to come on shore. He was so far overcome by false confidence, or the necessity of his situation, as to comply. The moment they discovered him to be in their power, they began to grasp him furiously, and to point their spears and daggers at every part of his body. The object of these menaces was to induce him to bring on shore his treasure, and deliver it into their hands. A large basket of dollars was accordingly sent in, which they took and divided, but immediately renewed their threats in order to extort still more. Riley then made signs to send on shore an old man, Antonio Michel, who, on his arrival, immediately attracted the attention of the

savages; under cover of which diversion Riley succeeded in throwing himself into the sea, and regained the boat by swimming. He afterwards saw with agony the poor old man thrust dead with a spear; but assures us, that neither by himself nor his men was he considered as having incurred guilt by this mode of saving his own life, and restoring to them his services in this critical emergency.

The boat, even in its wretched state, was now their only hope; and the object was to get it out from among the breakers, and into the open sea. This, in the opinion of Riley, a miraculous interposition of providence enabled them to effect ; but the event, as there seems a want of the dignus vindice nodus, might probably be traced to some very simple physical cause. They made their way through the ocean in this crazy vessel, two men bailing out the water by turns. At length, on the 2d of September, their stock of provisions and water was on the eve of being exhausted; the leaks had increased to such a degree that the united efforts of the crew could with difficulty keep the boat from sinking; and it appeared every moment possible that the next wave might bury them in the bosom of the ocean. Riley then represented to his crew that no resource remained but to steer towards the land; that they must inevitably perish if they continued out at sea; and

that, on land, they could do no more than perish. The mariners, with heavy hearts, admitted the force of this reasoning, and the vessel was turned towards the coast. It was the 7th, however, before they arrived at a promontory, which they afterwards found to be Cape Barbas, a little to the north of Cape Blanco. The shore was here lined with a face of perpendicular and broken cliffs, where they in vain attempted to find an ascent. They searched for four miles along the foot of the wall of rock, and were at length obliged to spend the night on the sand. Next morning they rose somewhat refreshed, and Riley came to a spot which seemed to afford a perilous possibility of ascent. There, clinging for life" to the loose rocks, he scrambled from steep to steep, till, by a tedious path, he at length reached the summit of the cliff. But what was his horror, when he beheld before him an immeasurable plain, “with"out a tree, shrub, or spear of grass, that could "give the smallest relief to expiring nature." He fell senseless to the ground, and was some time before he regained the full possession of consciousness. His companions, who were far behind, though previously warned, experienced a similar shock at the first view of this expanse of desolation. They fell to the earth, exclaiming, "'Tis enough! here we must breathe our last.” Riley however, after the first shock was over, en,