Accordingly in the afternoon of the 17th of February, accompanied by thirty people, he left Funing-kedy, it being necessary to travel in the night to avoid the moorish banditti.

At midnight they stopped near a small village, but the thermometer being so low as 68 deg., none of the negroes could sleep on account of the cold.

They resumed their journey at daybreak, and in the morning passed Simbing, the frontier village of Ludamar.
From this village Major Houghton wrote his last letter, with a pencil, to Dr.Laidley, having been deserted by his negro servants, who refused to follow him into the moorish country.

This brave but unfortunate man, having surmounted many difficulties, had endeavoured to pass through the kingdom of Ludamar, where Mr.Park learned the following particulars concerning his fate.

On his arrival at Jarra, he got acquainted with some moorish merchants, who were travelling to Tisheel, a place celebrated for its salt pits in the great desert, for the purpose of purchasing salt.