Laratine is the name given to the offspring of a Moor and a negro slave. Although they are slaves, the Laratines are never sold, but while living in separate camps, are treated very much like the Zénagues. Those who are the sons of Hassanes are warriors, whilst the children of Marabouts are brought up to the profession of their father.
The actual slaves are all negroes. Ill-treated, badly fed, and flogged on the slightest pretext, there is no suffering which they are not called upon to endure.
In May, 1825, Caillié returned to St. Louis. Baron Roger was absent, and his representative was by no means friendly. The explorer had to content himself with the pay of a common soldier until the return of his protector, to whom he sent the notes he had made when amongst the Bracknas, but all his offers of service were rejected. He was promised a certain sum on his return from Timbuctoo; but how was he even to start without private resources?
The intrepid Caillié was not, however, to be discouraged. As he obtained neither encouragement nor help from the colonial government, he went to Sierra Leone, where the governor, who did not wish to deprive Major Laing of the credit of being the first to arrive at Timbuctoo, rejected his proposals.
In the management of an indigo factory, Caillié soon saved money to the extent of two thousand francs, a sum which appeared to him sufficient to carry him to the end of the world. He lost no time in purchasing the necessary merchandise, and joined some Mandingoes and "seracolets," or wandering African merchants. He told them, under the seal of secrecy, that he had been born in Egypt of Arab parents, taken to France at an early age, and sent to Senegal to look after the business of his master, who, satisfied with his services, had given him his freedom. He added, that his chief desire was to get back to Egypt, and resume the Mohammedan religion.
On the 22nd March, 1827, Caillié left Freetown for Kakondy, a village on the Rio Nuñez, where he employed his leisure in collecting information respecting the Landamas and the Nalous, both subject to the Foulahs of Fouta Djallon, but not Mohammedans, and, as a necessary result, both much given to spirituous liquors. They dwell in the districts watered by the Rio Nuñez, side by side with the Bagos, an idolatrous race who dwell at its mouth. The Bagos are light-hearted, industrious, and skilful tillers of the soil; they make large profits out of the sale of their rice and salt. They have no king, no religion but a barbarous idolatry, and are governed by the oldest man in their village, an arrangement which answers very well.