When Job had attained the age of fifteen, he assisted his father in the capacity of Iman, or inferior priest, and soon after married the daughter of the Alfa of Tombuto:  By her he had three sons, Abdallah, Ibrahim, and Sambo.  Two years before his captivity he took a second wife, the daughter of the Alfa of Tomga; by whom he had a daughter named Fatima.  His two wives and his four children were alive when he left Bunda.

In the month of February, 1730, the father of Job, having learnt that an English vessel had arrived in the Gambia, sent his son thither, attended by two domestics, to procure some European commodities; but charged him not to cross the river, because the inhabitants of the opposite bank were Mandingoes, enemies of the kingdom of Futa.

Job, coming to no agreement with Captain Pyke, the commander of the English vessel, sent back his two domestics to Bunda, to render an account of his affairs to his father, and to inform him that his curiosity induced him to travel further.  With this view he made a contract with a negro merchant, named Loumein-Yoa, who understood the language of the Mandingoes, to serve him as an interpreter and guide on a pacific expedition and overture.  Having passed the river Gambia, when the heat compelled him to avail himself of the cooling shade of the forest, he suspended his arms upon a tree, to rest himself.  They consisted of a sabre, with a handle of gold; a dagger in a sheath, with a hilt of the same metal, and a rich quiver filled with arrows, of which king Sambo, the son of Jelazi, had made him a present.  “His evil destiny willed"[1] that a troop of Mandingoes, accustomed to pillage, should pass that way, who, discovering him unarmed, seized him, shaved his head and chin; and, on the 27th of February, sold him, with his interpreter, to Captain Pyke; and, on the first of March, they were put on board the vessel.  Pyke, however, learning from Job that he was the same person who had attempted to trade with him some days before, and that he was a slave only by having been kidnapped, gave him leave to ransom himself and his companion.  Accordingly, Job immediately sent to a friend of his father, who dwelt at Joar, where the vessel then lay, to beseech him to send news of his captivity.  But the distance being fifteen days journey, the Captain, after waiting some time, found it necessary to set sail, and the unfortunate Job was carried off, and sold, as has been already mentioned.

[Footnote 1:  This is the explanation of Job, who being a Mahometan, was a fatalist in his belief.]

He is described as being a fine figure, five feet ten inches in height; of a pleasing but grave countenance, and having strait black hair.[1] His natural qualities were excellent.  He was possessed of a solid judgment, a ready and wonderfully retentive memory, an ardent love for truth, and a sweet disposition, mild, affectionate, and grateful.  His religion was Mahometanism; but he rejected the idea of a sensual paradise, and