"
In a few weeks all was ready for his departure. The plan was, to proceed
up the Nile as far as Sennaar or the Babr-el-Abiad, and from thence to
strike across the African continent to the coast of the Atlantic.
His letters from Cairo are full of interest. Of the Nile itself he
speaks contemptuously, says it resembles the Connecticut in size, or may
be compared with the Thames.
After some delay, the day is fixed on which the caravan is to leave
Cairo. He writes to his friends and to the African Association in great
spirits; talks of cutting the continent across, and raises the
expectations of his employers to a high pitch;--the very next letters
from Cairo brought the melancholy intelligence of his death. It seems he
was seized with a bilious complaint, for which he administered a strong
solution of vitriolic acid, so powerful as to produce violent and
burning pains, that threatened to be fatal unless immediate relief could
be procured, which was attempted to be got by a powerful dose of tartar
emetic. His death happened about the end of December, 1788, in the
thirty-eighth year of his age.
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