Page:Journal of Negro History, vol. 7.djvu/321

 River Niger, in the years 1795 to 1797, and again in the fatal expedition of 1805, will be well acquainted with Isaaco. They will have smiled at his childish tempers, applauded his snakelike cunning, and laughed outright at his heathen superstitions. But the others must be gravely informed that Isaaco was a West African of the Mandingo tribe who was wont for dignity's sake to describe himself as a Mohammedan priest. Certainly he had the Pentecostal gift of tongues, for there was hardly a dialect of Bambouk, Fool-adoo, Jallonkadoo, Timbuctoo, and all the other tribes of Senegal and beyond, but he could deceive the wiliest natives in it. Moreover, as a professional guide he found it paid to keep a wife in every petty state. At the worst she served to exercise the tongue; at the best she was provisioner, geographer, and spy. Never tired, never sick, never at a loss, Isaaco was simply indispensable to the European merchants trading in Senegal. So, indeed, was he to Mungo Park, that doughtiest of Scotsmen, who dared on through Bambarra and Haoussa where no white-face had ever been. Without Isaaco's genius and gigantic strength, it is unlikely that the second expedition (in 1805) would ever have reached the Niger. It was Isaaco who nursed the forty brave men who one by one sickened of dysentery; supported them on their mules, even in delirium, when they cried like children for their homes; and buried them at the last with saphies or charms from the Koran over their unmarked graves. It was he who watched, while the others slept the dead sleep of exhaustion; piled up the camp-fires to scare off the lions and wolves, and, worse than the wolves, those thieves and murderers (the scum of Senegal) who ever dogged their steps. None like Isaaco could placate each chieftain with the gift that his soul desired (be it cowries, beads, looking-glasses, muskets, or multi-colored waistcoats); nor when these failed, could any but Isaaco win passports with the mere honey of his tongue. Nothing could swerve him from honesty or the performance of his task. He was tied to a