On the 15th of February they departed from Toorda, and about two o’clock came to a considerable town called Funing-kedy, where being informed that the road to Jarra was much infested by the moors, and that a number of people were going to that town on the following day, Mr. Park resolved to stay and accompany them.  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.  It is supposed that the moors deceived him, either in regard to the route he wished to pursue, or the state of the country between Jarra and Timbuctoo, and their intention probably was to rob and leave him in the desert.  At the end of two days he suspected their treachery, and insisted on returning to Jarra.  Finding him to persist in this determination, the moors robbed him of every thing he possessed, and went off with their camels; the major, being thus deserted, returned on foot to a watering place called Tarra.  He had been some days without food, and the unfeeling moors refusing to give him any, he sunk at last under his distresses.  Whether he actually perished of hunger, or was murdered by the savage Mahometans, is not certainly known.  His body was dragged into the woods, and Mr. Park was shown at a distance, the spot where his remains were left to perish.

Leaving Simbing, the travellers arrived in safety at Jarra, which is a large town situate at the bottom of rocky hills; the houses being built of clay and stones intermixed, the former answering the purpose of mortar.  It forms part of the moorish kingdom of Ludamar, but the majority of the inhabitants are negroes, who purchase a precarious protection from the moors, in order to avert their depredations.

On Mr. Park’s arrival at Jarra, he obtained a lodging at the house of Daman Jumma, a Gambia slatee, to whom he had an order from Dr. Laidley for a debt of the value of six slaves.  Daman readily acknowledged the debt, but said he was afraid he could not pay more than two slaves’ value.  He was, however, very useful to Mr. Park, by procuring his beads and amber to be exchanged for gold, which being more portable, was more easily concealed from the moors.