Chapter M: Daguerre (12)

The ship in which Park sailed reached the African coast in the latter end of June 1795, and on the 5th of July the traveler took up his residence in the house of an English settler in the village of Pisania, situated on the northern bank of the Gambia, at a considerable distance from the coast. After remaining here about five months, preparing for his journey into the interior, and acquiring information respecting the western parts of Africa, Park launched upon his perilous enterprise on the 2d of December 1795. For three months he toiled on in a north-westerly direction, passing through various negro kingdoms, and numberless towns and villages, almost everywhere received with kindness and respect, although the cupidity of some of the negro sovereigns stripped him of most of the articles of value he had brought along with him, as a tax for allowing him to pass through their dominions. For a detailed account of all his adventures during the journey, we must refer to his own narrative, which has long and justly been regarded as one of the most interesting and best-written books in the English language. Suffice it to say, that after having pushed on till he found himself near the southern borders of the Great Desert, and when ‘fancy had already placed him on the banks of the Niger, and presented to his imagination a thousand delightful scenes in his future progress,’ a cruel accident came to delay, and, as it seemed, utterly to prevent, the fulfillment of his ‘golden dream.’ In this part of Africa he found that the Moors, or men of Arab blood, were the ruling race, domineering over the negroes in the most insolent manner; and while from the negroes, almost universally, he experienced kind treatment, the Moors he describes as the most barbarous and tyrannical of the human race. Accordingly, after entering the countries which, from their proximity to the Great Desert, were under the thraldom of the Moors, he proceeded with greater caution than he had found it necessary to adopt in passing through the countries inhabited by a pure negro population. His caution, however, was of no avail; on the 7th of March, 1796, he was carried away captive by a Moorish chief to Benown, a village on the margin of the Desert, where he was detained for nearly three months, enduring incredible hardships from the cruelty of his keepers, who persecuted him both as a stranger and as a Christian.

Escaping at length from the hands of his tormentors, Park continued his journey in a south-easterly direction, passing, as before, through several negro kingdoms, where, however, the Moors seemed to exercise a powerful influence, and where, consequently, he was obliged to undergo much suffering and insult, although, even in the depths of his distress, he always found sympathy and compassion from some poor negro. On the 21st of July, 1796, he was approaching a large town called Sego, the capital of the kingdom of Bambarra, in company with a party of negroes, who were proceeding thither, and who entertained him on the way with accounts of the traffic which went on at this town, and of the Great Water, or Joliba, which flowed past it. This stream Park had no doubt was the Niger, of which he was in search; and so it proved. ‘We rode together,’ he says, ‘through some marshy ground, where, as I was anxiously looking around for the river, one of them called out, “_Geo affilli!_” (“See the water!”) and looking forwards, I saw with infinite pleasure the great object of my mission――the long-sought-for majestic Niger glittering to the morning sun, as broad as the Thames at Westminster, and flowing slowly _to the eastward_. I hastened to the brink, and having drunk of the water, lifted up my fervent thanks in prayer to the Great Ruler of all things for having thus far crowned my endeavors with success.’

Having thus been successful in reaching the banks of the long-sought Niger, Park would have pursued his journey along them so as to ascertain its farther course, and even trace it to its termination; but his entire destitution of everything necessary for such an enterprise, and the reports which he received of the bigotry of the Moors who ruled in the districts through which he must pass, prevented him from advancing farther than Silla, a town considerably to the east of Sego. Accordingly, having collected all the information he could respecting the course of the river beyond this point――having done all that he could towards the settlement of the question of the course of the Niger――having ascertained the existence of large trading cities in the interior of Africa, some of which he had visited, and the position of three others of which (namely, Jenné, Timbuctoo, and Houssa) he had learnt by accurate inquiry――having, moreover, accumulated a vast mass of information respecting the manners, customs, and social condition of the natives of Central Africa――Park returned to the coast along the banks of the Niger, and consequently by a route different from that which he had adopted on his journey inland. He reached Pisania on the 10th of June, 1797, having thus been absent twenty-one months in the interior of Africa. He arrived in London on Christmas Day in the same year; was received with great enthusiasm by all classes; prepared the narrative of his journey for publication; and at length, in 1800, having in the meantime married, he settled as a medical practitioner in Peebles.

Park’s success gave an impulse to the spirit of discovery, and two attempts were made shortly after his return to follow up what he had begun. ‘A German, named Hornemann, undertook to penetrate into the continent by way of Egypt, and succeeded in reaching Fezzan, whence he wrote, in April, 1800, to England; but no particulars relative to his future history are known. He was never again heard of till 1824, when Captain Clapperton, who followed the same route with a better issue, learnt that the German traveler had succeeded in penetrating from Fezzan to Nyffee, or Nouffie, on the Niger, where he fell a victim to dysentery. Hornemann’s papers had been all accidentally burnt.

‘In 1804, another enterprising spirit, Mr. Nicholls, endeavored to enter the African interior from the Calabar coast, in the Gulf of Guinea, but, at the very outset of his journey, he also perished from the pestilential fever of those latitudes.’ At length Mr. Park――who, notwithstanding the public respect and domestic comfort which he enjoyed in the situation in which he had settled down, still hankered after a life of wandering in Africa, avowing, it is said, to Sir Walter Scott, who was one of his most intimate friends, that he preferred it to any other――consented, on the invitation of government, to undertake a second journey. ‘All requisite preparations for the enterprise were completed before the end of January, and on the 30th of that month 1805, Park set sail from Portsmouth, in the Crescent transport, taking on board with him from the dockyards of that place four or five artificers.’ He was accompanied also by his brother-in-law, Mr. Anderson, and a friend, Mr. Scott. When, on the 21st of March 1805, the transport anchored in the Goree Roads, near the mouth of the Gambia, and ‘Mr. Park’s purposes were made known here, almost every man of the garrison volunteered his services for the expedition. The traveler selected thirty-five able-bodied men, and also accepted the offered services of one officer, Lieutenant Martyn, thinking it of consequence to have in the party some one already acquainted with the soldiers. Two experienced seamen from the Squirrel frigate were added to the party with the view of benefiting by their valuable assistance in sailing down the Niger.

‘Park communicated these arrangements by letter to the colonial department, and thus he describes his departure from Goree:――“On the morning of the 6th of April we embarked the soldiers, in number thirty-five men. They jumped into the boat in the highest spirits, and bade adieu to Goree with repeated huzzas. I believe that every man in the garrison would have embarked with great cheerfulness; but no inducement could prevail on a single negro to accompany me.”’ Park’s intentions with respect to this second journey were stated to government before his departure from England. He said that ‘he would proceed up the Gambia, cross the country to the Niger, and travel down that river _to its termination_.’ Sailing up the Gambia as far as Kayee, Park and his party commenced their land journey from that point on the 27th of April, in high spirits, and amply provided with all necessaries. ‘At Kayee he was able, for the first time, to perfect his preparations for the route, by attaching a few natives to his party. Isaaco, a Mandingo priest and merchant, and one well inured to long inland journeys, engaged himself to act as a guide to the expedition, and to give it the assistance of several negroes, his own personal attendants.’ Unfortunately it was the worst season of the year for traveling, and the journey was one of continued toil and sickness. Before the 19th of August more than three-fourths of the party had died, or been left behind to die. On that day, after leaving the place called Toniba, ‘coming,’ says Park, ‘to the brow of a hill, I once more saw the Niger rolling its immense stream along the plain!’ This was a pleasant sight for Park’s companions. Several more of them, however, died before Sego, the capital of Bambarra, was reached. Here, being kindly received by Mansong, the king of the Bambaraas, Park hoped to be able to obtain a vessel in which he might navigate the Niger to its termination. He waited for several weeks at Sansanding, a town a little below Sego, using all his endeavors to obtain from Mansong a canoe sufficient for his purpose. ‘After much labor, he did get a vessel of the desired kind fitted up, and named it his Britanic majesty’s schooner the Joliba. At Sansanding, on the 28th of October, Mr. Anderson underwent the fate of so many of his companions, and regarding his death Park observes――“No event that took place during the journey ever threw the smallest gloom over my mind till I laid Mr. Anderson in the grave. I then felt myself as if left a second time lonely and friendless amidst the wilds of Africa.”

‘At this point the authentic account of Mungo Park’s second journey ends. Isaaco’s engagement here terminated, and the papers given to him by the traveler, and carried back to the coast, constitute the only records of the expedition which came from Park’s own pen. These papers were accompanied by several letters, the most interesting of which is one (dated Sansanding, November 17) addressed to Lord Camden. In this letter Park says――“I am sorry to say, that of forty-four Europeans who left the Gambia in perfect health, five only are at present alive; namely, three soldiers (one deranged in his mind), Lieutenant Martyn, and myself. From this account I am afraid that your lordship will be apt to consider matters as in a very hopeless state; but I assure you I am far from despairing. With the assistance of one of the soldiers, I have changed a large canoe into a tolerably good schooner, on board of which I this day hoisted the British flag, and shall set sail to the east, with a fixed resolution to discover the termination of the Niger, or perish in the attempt. I have heard nothing that I can depend on respecting the remote course of this mighty stream, but I am more and more inclined to think that it can end nowhere but in the sea. My dear friend Mr. Anderson, and likewise Mr. Scott, are both dead; but though all the Europeans who are with me should die, and though I myself were half dead, I would still persevere, and if I could not succeed in the object of my journey, I would at last _die on the Niger_.”’

These were the last words which Park sent to Europe; the next intelligence was a vague rumor of his death. For five years, however, no authentic information of the event was received; but from the exertions of Isaaco, Park’s former guide, who was induced in 1810 to make a journey with a view to ascertain the traveler’s fate, it appeared that his prophetic words had been accomplished, and that he had ‘died on the Niger.’ Isaaco obtained the particulars from Amadi Fatouma, who acted as guide to the party onward from Sansanding. They were as follows:――Passing Jeuné and Timbuctoo in safety, the little schooner, with Park and his surviving companions (eight in number) on board, reached Yaour, in the kingdom of Houssa. Not willing to delay his progress by landing, Park sent Amadi Fatouma, whose engagement as guide terminated here, on shore with presents to the king. These presents being treacherously appropriated by the inferior chief to whom Amadi delivered them, the king of Houssa, thinking his dignity insulted, sent an army after the schooner. The army came upon the schooner at a part of the river called Boussa. ‘There is before Boussa a rock extending across the river, with only one opening in it, in the form of a door, for the water to pass through. The king’s men took possession of the top of this rock, until Park came up to it and attempted to pass. The natives attacked him and his friends with lances, pikes, arrows, and other missiles. Park defended himself vigorously for a long time; but at last, after throwing everything in the canoe overboard, being overpowered by numbers, and seeing no chance of getting the canoe past, he took hold of one of the white men and jumped into the river; Martyn did the same; and the whole were drowned in their attempt to escape by swimming. One black remained in the canoe, the other two being killed, and he cried for mercy. The canoe fell into the hands of the natives. Amadi Fatouma, on being freed from his irons three months afterwards, ascertained these facts from the native who had survived the catastrophe.’

From 1805 to 1822, various attempts were made to penetrate after Park into the heart of Nigritia. In 1809 Roentger, a German, proceeded from Morocco with a view to cross the Great Desert, but he seems to have been murdered by his guides. Shortly after, some information was obtained from two Americans, Adams and Riley, who were wrecked off the coast of the Great Desert, and carried into the interior by the Arabs. Adams alleged that he had been carried as far as Timbuctoo, but little credit was attached to his statement. The famous Burckhardt was to attempt a journey into the interior from Egypt, but died before carrying his resolution into effect. In 1816 the British government, possessed with the idea, which we have seen that Park himself came latterly to entertain, that the Congo was the outlet of the Niger, fitted out two expeditions, one of which, under Captain Tuckey, was to ascend the Congo in vessels; the other, under Major Peddie, was to penetrate the interior by Park’s route, and, embarking on the Niger, to sail down it so as to meet Captain Tuckey, which would of course happen if the Niger and Congo were identical. Both parties were brought to a halt――the expedition up the Congo by cataracts, which prevented further navigation, and the land expedition by the hostility of the natives; and the only result of consequence was to explode the hypothesis that the Niger and the Congo were the same.

About the year 1819 attention was drawn to the possibility of penetrating into Central Africa by a route not yet tried――namely, from Tripoli through the Great Desert; and as the bashaw of Tripoli, whose influence extended far into the interior, was understood to be willing to cultivate the good will of the British, it was resolved to make the attempt under his auspices. Accordingly, in 1819, Mr. Ritchie and Lieutenant Lyon began the journey from Tripoli across the Desert. They reached Mourzouk in Fezzan; but Mr. Ritchie dying there of bilious fever, the expedition was abandoned. In April 1822, however, three new adventurers, Major Denham, Captain Clapperton, and Dr. Oudney, with several companions, followed the same route. ‘A caravan, belonging to a great native merchant named Boo Khaloom, was on the point of starting for Soudan on the Niger, and with this the band of travelers were to cross the Desert in company.

‘Boo Khaloom, a Moor or Arab of remarkable abilities, and of a liberal and humane disposition, had a retinue on the journey of above two hundred Arabs, and with this company performed their dreary marches, under a burning sun, across the sands of the interior. The most extraordinary sight on this route was the number of skeletons strewed on the ground, the wrecks of former caravans. Sometimes sixty or seventy lay in one spot, and of these some lay entwined in one another’s arms, as they had perished! For fourteen days, hills of sand, and plains of sand, constituted the only objects in sight of travelers. At the end of that time they again beheld symptoms of herbage, being now on the northern borders of the kingdom of Bornou. Shortly afterwards, on reaching a town called Lari, the British travelers beheld a sight which made up for all they had undergone. This was the great inland sea of Africa, Lake Tchad, the existence of which had been so often canvassed, and which now lay before them “glowing with the golden rays of the sun.”

‘Lake Tchad, one of the most interesting points of Central African scenery, is a vast triangular sheet of water, about one hundred and eighty miles long from east to west, and above one hundred miles in extent at its greatest breadth. It lies between 14 and 17 degrees of north latitude, and 12 and 15 degrees of east longitude. Two large streams flow into it――the one called the Yeou, from the west, and the other the Shary or Tshary, from the south. Lake Tchad is situated about five hundred miles to the east of the Niger, and the country lying between them bears the general name of the Soudan, though particular appellations are given to provinces, such as Houssa, and others. Bornou is the district lying immediately to the west of the lake. Major Denham spent a considerable time here. He found the kingdom of Bornou in a very peculiar position as to government. The people are negroes, and had once been subjugated by the Foulahs or Fellatahs――a bold race, of uncertain descent, and the conquerors and oppressors of many kingdoms in the interior. But a Bornouese negro, of humble birth and powerful talents, had aroused his countrymen and driven out the Fellatahs. This individual was found by Major Denham to be in possession of the whole power of Bornou, though, out of respect to the prejudices of his people, the old Fellatah prince was still permitted to hold a nominal throne, and the empty title of sultan. The real ruler contented himself with the title of sheikh. He is described by Denham as being extremely intelligent, and as holding the reins of power with great firmness and sagacity. The Bornouese are disciples of Mohammed, and may be called well civilized in comparison with other inland nations. Their country supplies them abundantly with food, and they carry on manufactures to a considerable extent in cotton.

‘Major Denham found an opportunity of traveling round nearly the whole of Lake Tchad, and thus satisfied himself that the waters of the Niger did not enter this inland pool. After eighteen months’ stay in Bornou, Denham was joined by Captain Clapperton who had separated from him in order to explore the country of Soudan――an excursion on which Dr. Oudeney unfortunately perished from fatigue, and the diseases incidental to the climate. Clapperton was well received at Soccatoo, the Capital of Houssa, and the seat of Bello, the great Soudanite monarch, and the head of the Fellatah nation. Like the sheikh of Bornou, Sultan Bello was found to be an able and intelligent man.

‘Soccatoo, the capital of Houssa, situated on a tributary of the Niger, and distant four days’ journey from that river, is one of the largest cities of the interior, containing, to appearance, above forty thousand inhabitants. The city is laid out in regular streets, and is surrounded, like most African towns, with clay walls. The houses are well-built cottages, generally of clay; and the mosques, as well as parts of the sultan’s palace, are ornamented with painted wooden pillars, in a very pretty style of architecture.

‘Upon the whole, the two countries of Houssa and Bornou must be regarded as far above any kingdoms of the African interior yet visited by Europeans in point of power and civilization. The Fellatah sultan, Bello, was extremely anxious that an English consul should be sent to Soccatoo, and that a trade should be opened up with the English. Before the travelers left either Houssa or Bornou, however, they found the rulers of these places to cool in their desire for British intercourse. This arose, without doubt, from the intrigues of the Arabs, who were afraid that the traffic through the Desert from the Mediterranean might be superseded by the commerce of the British from the Atlantic or western coast. The Arabs, therefore, artfully placed before the minds of the African princes the consequences which had resulted to India and other countries from a connexion with Britain.’

Having spent in all about three years in the interior of Africa, Denham and Clapperton returned to Tripoli, which they reached on the 26th of January 1825. ‘The safe return of two principal members of this expedition, and the interesting nature of the observations made by them, was cheering and encouraging to the British authorities and to all who took an interest in African Discovery. But the question of the Niger’s outlet, through which alone it was obvious commercial intercourse could be securely and effectually established with the interior, remained yet in doubt, though the late travelers were fully convinced that the river flowed into the Atlantic somewhere in the Gulf of Guinea. Ere he had rested many months at home, Clapperton, one of the bravest of the many brave men who had risked their lives on the same dangerous adventure, was again on his way to Africa at the head of an exploratory party. His companions were Dr. Morrison and Captain Pearce, besides a faithful servant of Clapperton, Richard Lander. It was resolved on this occasion to enter the interior from Badagry, a district on the northern coast of the Gulf of Guinea, from which Clapperton believed the Niger might be soonest reached.’

In the course of their arduous journey all of the party died except Clapperton and his servant Lander. They persevered, nevertheless, passing through many populous negro towns situated between the coast and the Niger. The whole of this tract of country they found very thickly peopled; and the natives appeared, at a distance from the coast, to be of superior disposition and character. In April 1826 they reached Boussa on the Niger, the place where Park had been killed; they saw the spot where the traveler had met his death, and heard that some relics of him were still preserved, but could not obtain a right of them. After staying some time at Boussa, Clapperton crossed the Niger, and paid another visit to the territories of his former acquaintance, Sultan Bello, who, however, seemed less friendly to him than on the previous occasion, apparently suspecting the motives which actuated the British in their efforts to procure information respecting a part of the world so remote from their own. Wearied out by his toils, Clapperton became ill at Soccatoo, and died there on the 13th of April 1827, in the arms of Richard Lander, who, with great difficulty, made his way alone back to the coast, which he reached in November. He immediately set out for England, carrying Captain Clapperton’s papers with him, and a journal of his own proceedings subsequent to Clapperton’s death.

‘Meanwhile the British government were making another attempt from the Mediterranean. About the time that Clapperton set out on his second journey, Major Laing, an able officer, who had already traveled on the African coasts, entered the Desert by way of Tripoli, under the protection of a personage who had resided twenty-two years at Timbuctoo. When in the middle of the Desert, the party was attacked by a band of wild Tuaricks, and Major Laing was left for dead, with twenty-four dreadful wounds on his person. He recovered, however, by the care of his surviving companions, although numerous portions of bone had to be extracted from his head and temples! When able to do so, he pursued his journey, and on the 18th of August reached the famous city of Timbuctoo. Several letters were received from him, dated at this place, which he described as having disappointed him in point of extent, being only about four miles in circuit, but that he had found its records copious and interesting. Major Laing never had the opportunity, unhappily, of making these valuable discoveries known, being murdered, three days after leaving Timbuctoo, by a wretch who had undertaken to guide him to the mouth of the Senegal, or its neighborhood. What became of the ill-fated traveler’s papers is not known.

‘The next light thrown upon African geography came from a source somewhat different from those described. René Cailliè, a Frenchman of humble origin, assuming the character of a Mohammedan on a pilgrimage to Mecca, joined, on the 19th of April 1827, a small native caravan, traveling from the river Nunez to the interior. He soon after reached the Joliba (the name which the Niger bears as far down as Timbuctoo), but was detained by illness for five months at a place called Timé. On his recovery, he passed onwards to Jenné on the Niger, a city described by him as containing eight thousand or ten thousand inhabitants, and as being a place of considerable traffic. At Jenné, he embarked in a loose native vessel of sixty tons burden, and sailed with a party of merchants through Lake Dibbie, and down the Niger, until, in April 1828, the vessel stopped at Cabra, the port of Timbuctoo. The inhabitants of Cabra were about twelve hundred in number, and were solely occupied as porters, either in unloading goods, or in conveying them on the backs of asses to Timbuctoo. That city itself lies about ten miles from the Niger, and is a place of some ten thousand or twelve thousand inhabitants. It is chiefly built of bricks, and is supported entirely by commerce. The population are partly negroes and partly Moors; but the king is a negro, and the government is solely in the hands of that class. On the other hand, though all the people engage more or less in trade, the Moors are the principal merchants. The great article of traffic is salt, which is brought from the mines in the neighboring Desert of Sahara, and is disseminated from Timbuctoo over the whole of Central Africa.

‘After leaving Timbuctoo, Cailliè made his way across the Desert to Tangier, where he arrived in August 1828, and whence he was forwarded by the French consul to Europe. Upon the whole, however, M. Caillé has contributed little to the removal of those glaring blanks which have so long defaced the map of Africa.

‘Not so the next adventurer to whom we have to allude. This was Richard Lander, the faithful follower of Clapperton. Lander made an offer of his services to government for the investigation of the course and termination of the Niger. The offer was accepted; and Lander embarked at Portsmouth on the 9th of January 1830, accompanied by his younger brother John, who shared in all the toils and honors of the expedition. The Landers arrived on the 19th of March at Badagry, and at the end of the month started on the same route pursued by Clapperton in his journey to the Niger. Paskoe, the old guide, was again taken into service by the Landers. After an interesting journey through the populous cities of Yarriba, the travelers arrived at Boussa on the Niger on the 17th of June. The king of Boussa welcomed them with great cordiality. Though gentle and hospitable, this prince was a mere ignorant savage in comparison of the kings of Houssa and Bornou. At Boussa, notwithstanding that aversion always evinced by the natives to speak about Park, the Landers found an old nautical publication belonging to that traveler, with a loose paper or two between the sheets――one of them an invitation card to dinner. The man who possessed this book regarded it as his household god――every written paper being of magical import in the eyes of the natives. The _tobe_, or surtout-dress, of rich crimson damask, which Park had worn, was also recovered at Boussa by the Landers; but no distinct account was got of the mode in which these articles came into the hands of their owners.’

After making all inquiries, so as to rescue any relics of Park, and even ascending to Yaourie, a city and province a few days’ journey farther up the Niger for that purpose, obtaining for their trouble a double-barreled gun which had belonged to the traveler, the Landers endeavored to procure a canoe, that they might sail down the river, and solve the great problem of its course and termination. They were assisted in the kindest manner by the king of Boussa, who sent messengers down the Niger to a town called Rabba, in order to pave the way for the secure passage of the travelers. On the 20th of September, the travelers embarked in a canoe provided for them on the Niger.

‘On the 7th of October they arrived opposite Rabba, having passed a number of islands and towns on the river, which was always a magnificent stream, but varying considerably in width. Rabba is a large market town, governed by a relative of Sultan Bello. The ruler of Rabba being dissatisfied with the presents made to him, the travelers were reluctantly forced to give him Park’s _tobe_, and they subsequently had the misfortune to lose his gun. Near Rabba, the river took a wide sweep to the eastward, but it again turned to the south. Egga, another famous market town on the river, and Kacunda, were afterwards passed, and the mouths of two large tributaries, the Coodoovia and the Tchadda, were also seen. Various other towns were passed in succession, the largest of which were Bocqua and Attah. The Landers had now arrived at a region where signs of European intercourse were seen, and where the natives had been tainted by the demoralising consequences of the slave commerce. At a place called Kirree the travelers suffered a heavy misfortune. They were attacked by a number of canoes, seized, and their property taken from them. Richard’s journal, amongst other articles, was lost in the river, though the notes of his brother were happily preserved. The travelers expected nothing but death at this time themselves; but their lives were saved, that they might be carried down the river to Eboe Town where the king of the Eboe poople resided, and by whose subjects the attack had been made.

On their way to Eboe Town, they passed a large lake on the river, which afterwards divided itself into three broad streams, flowing at different inclinations to the south-west. From this, and previous branchings of the stream, the Landers felt convinced that they were close by the termination of the Niger in the Gulf of Guinea; and their anxiety to continue their route was proportionable to their pleasure at the near accomplishment of their task. Obie, the Eboe king, resolved to detain them, however, till a ransom was got up from the English; but King Boy, a monarch residing farther down the river, and who was then in Eboe Town, became bound for the ransom of the Landers, and carried them down (what proved to be the stream commonly called the Nun River) to Brass Town, his father’s capital. King Boy subsequently went down to the mouth of the river with Richard Lander, leaving John at Brass Town. An English merchantman was lying in the Nun, and, with hope in his heart, Richard Lander went on board of her with Boy, and explained his situation to the commander, Captain Lake, expecting to find a country’s sympathy and aid. The wretch refused to expend a penny on their ransom, though, if he had possessed a spark of intelligence, he might have been assured that the British government would gladly have paid, ten times over, any outlay made in such circumstances. Richard Lander with difficulty prevailed on Boy to go and bring his brother John to the brig, by which time the traveler hoped Lake would relent. The brutal captain, however, did not relent; and when John Lander came to the brig, he and his brother, much against their will, were forced to leave the river without satisfying Boy, who had generously taken the risk of recovering their ransom. It is a consolation to think that the British government ultimately remunerated Boy beyond his expectations. In Captain Lake’s vessel, meantime, the Landers, after much danger, crossed the bar of the river Nun, and entered the open sea in the Bight of Benin, Gulf of Guinea, with the deep satisfaction on their minds of having thus attained the glory of discovering the termination of the Niger! On the 1st of December they were put ashore at Fernando Po, where they experienced the warmest reception from the British residents. Shortly after, they found a passage homewards, and reached Britain on the 9th of June 1831, after an absence of a year and a half.

‘The solution of the great African mystery by the Landers was justly felt by their countrymen as a national triumph. But the matter, when explained, looked so simple, as in the case of Columbus with the egg, that men wondered how they could have been so long in the dark with respect to it. The splitting of the Niger into numerous branches near its close, some of them a hundred miles distant from others, was the real cause of all the difficulty. Like the Nile, the Niger has a large delta (so called from the shape of the Greek letter [Greek: D] _delta_), and each of its branches bore the look of independent streams. The delta of the Niger is partly inhabited, but is extremely marshy.’

Since the completion of Park’s great discovery by the Landers, two expeditions have been fitted out for the navigation of the Niger from its mouth into the interior. At first there was a general belief that now a communication had been opened up with Central Africa, and that, by means of the Niger, an easy and speedy intercourse could be held with the negro tribes living south of the Great Desert. Accordingly, two steamers, one of them entirely iron, were fitted out in 1832, at the expense of some individuals in Liverpool anxious to commence the new trade. They arrived at the Delta of the Niger in the month of October, accompanied by a sailing-vessel laden with articles for traffic. Many of the crew were carried off by the pestilential influence of the climate; and the steamers did not ascend very far. The Tchadda, a tributary of the Niger, was explored for about a hundred miles by one of them; but its banks were not found to present much opportunity for commerce, and the steamer returned to the Niger. Richard Lander, who had given his services to the expedition, was mortally wounded in a scuffle with the natives, while ascending the river in a boat with a supply of kowries which he had returned to the sea-coast to procure. He died thirteen days after, on the 2d of February 1834; and in July, the vessels left the Niger on their voyage home, the crew of the one having been reduced from twenty-nine to five and that of the other from nineteen to four. In a commercial point of view, likewise, the expedition was a failure, the only article of value procured from the natives being ivory, and that in too small a quantity to pay the expenses of the enterprise.

A second expedition, consisting of three iron steamers commissioned by government, set sail for the Niger in May 1841. The object of this expedition was to open up such an intercourse with the native princes on the banks of the Niger as might serve to assist in suppressing the African slave trade, and to plant the seeds of civilization in the centre of the continent. Besides being amply manned and furnished, the vessels carried with them all that was necessary for establishing a little colony or model farm on the hanks of the Niger, such a scheme seeming best fitted for inoculating the African population with the habits which it was desired to naturalize among them. The entire number of individuals connected with the expedition was 301, of whom 145 were Europeans, and 156 persons of color. The vessels commenced the ascent of the Niger on the 20th of August; passed Aboh, the capital of the Eboe country, where the commissioners negotiated with Obie, the king or chief of the district, regarding the suppression of the slave trade. Ninety-five miles farther up they came to Iddah, the capital of the king of Eggarah, with whom a treaty was also concluded. On the 10th of September the confluence of the Niger and the Tchadda was reached; and here it was determined to establish the model farm. Accordingly, the part of the crews and cargoes intended for the purpose was disembarked.

Meanwhile sickness had become so prevalent, and the number of deaths so great, that two of the steamers were obliged to descend the river with the invalids, in order to give them the chance of recovery on the coast. The remaining steamer, the Albert, advanced as far as Egga, about 350 miles from the sea. Farther than this, however, the increasing illness of the crew prevented it from proceeding; and accordingly, having explained to the chief of the place the object of their visit, the commander turned back on the 5th of October, and descended the river, there being hardly hands sufficient left to manage the vessel. The Albert reached the sea on the 16th of October, the other two steamers having reached it on the end of the previous month. The expedition had been most disastrous. Of the 145 white men, only fifteen escaped the river fever; while of the 156 blacks, only eleven were attacked. The list of deaths showed a total of fifty-three. The news of these unfortunate results having reached England, orders were sent out in the summer of 1842 to abandon the enterprise, and remove the laborers from the model farm; which was accordingly done.

By way of summing up the information which we have yet been able, by all our researches and expeditions, to obtain respecting Soudan or Nigritia, we may state an opinion which seems to be gaining ground. It is maintained by some that there is evidence that great changes have occurred in Central Africa within the last few centuries; that, in fact, a general movement towards civilization is discernible in the heart of this vast and forbidding continent――a movement not originated by European contact, but born among the Africans themselves. There is evidence, it is said, that a few centuries ago the inhabitants of Nigritia were very far inferior in promise and culture to what they are at present; that the commercial spirit and manufacturing ingenuity which travelers report to exist among the negro tribes are of recent growth. The great agents in this change in the condition of Central Africa are said to be the Foulahs――a people of doubtful origin, but possibly Asiatic. These Foulahs are represented as having acted as conquerors of the original negro tribes――triumphing by virtue of their superior temperament and organization, and incorporating the petty states of the old negro chiefs into large kingdoms; helping also to civilize the natives by introducing among them the ideas of Mohammedanism, which, however inferior and pernicious in themselves, were yet an advance upon the original negro beliefs.

‘Throughout the whole extent of Nigritia or Negroland,’ says a writer who advocates the opinion we have just stated, ‘the Foulahs undoubtedly occupy preëminence. They are found spread over a geographic region of 28 to 30 degrees of longitude (1500 miles), and 7 to 10 degrees in latitude, or 500 miles. They extend from the Atlantic Ocean, from the mouth of the Senegal and Senegambia on the west, to the kingdoms of Bornou and Mandara on the east; from the Desert of Sahara on the north, to the mountains of Guinea or Kong on the south. This wide superficies contains more than 700,000 square miles, which is equal to the fourth part of Europe, and a tenth part of the immense continent of Africa.’

In some parts of this vast extent of territory the Foulahs are politically supreme, in others they are feudal dependents of the original chiefs; but everywhere they seem to be the growing power. ‘The Foulahs,’ says Mr. Hodgson, ‘are not negroes. They differ essentially from the negro race in all the characteristics which are marked by physical anthropology. They may be said to occupy the intermediate space betwixt the Arab and the negro. All travelers concur in representing them as a distinct race in moral as in physical traits. To their color, the various terms of bronze, copper, reddish, and sometimes white, has been applied. They concur also in the report that the Foulahs of every region represent themselves to be white men, and proudly assert their superiority to the black tribes among whom they live.… The Foulahs are rigid Mohammedans, and, according to Mollien the French traveler’s report, they are animated by a strong zeal for proselytism. They are the missionaries of Islam among the Pagan negro tribes. Where they have conquered, they have forced the adoption of the Koran by the sword; and whilst pursuing quietly their pastoral occupation, they become schoolmasters (_maalims_), and thus propagate the doctrines and precepts of Islam. Wherever the Foulah has wandered, the Pagan idolatry of the negro has been overthrown; the barbarous Fetish and greegree have been abandoned; anthropophagy and cannibalism have been suppressed.… Thus the Foulahs are now exercising a powerful influence upon the moral and social condition of Central Africa. I do not doubt that they are destined to be the great instrument in the future civilization of Africa, and the consequent suppression of the external Atlantic slave trade.… They will, probably, erect one vast empire in the Soudan, and the influence which that power may exert in the great question of African civilization, gives them no ordinary importance.’ If this opinion be true, what might not be the result if the Foulahs, at present barbarians and Mohammedans, themselves were overpowered by the higher and purer ideas which have raised Europe to its present supremacy over the earth? Meanwhile, it is consoling to think that, even in Central Africa, the human race has been moving onward.

NORTHERN AFRICA AND THE GREAT DESERT.――Respecting that vast section of the African continent which extends from the Mediterranean to Nigritia, it appears that we are only beginning to obtain a correct description. Various officers of the French army at present engaged in the arduous enterprise of establishing the colony of Algeria, have occupied themselves in collecting information regarding the numerous tribes overspreading Northern Africa; and it would seem, from their accounts, that the ideas we have been accustomed to entertain concerning these regions are far from correct.

According to the recent accounts, Northern Africa, between the Mediterranean and Nigritia, consists of two portions――the Tell, or that strip of land varying from 50 to 120 miles in breadth, which lies along the sea; and the Sahara, or, as it has commonly been called, the Great Desert. The following remarks respecting the Tell are from the work of Mr. Hodgson previously quoted:――‘On the Mediterranean coast of Africa, there are in progress at this moment great political and commercial revolutions. There exists in that region a sanguinary and unceasing conflict of Christianity with Mohammedanism, of civilization with semi-barbarism. France having conquered the extensive territory of Algeria, is now pushing forward her victorious legions into the more important and more populous empire of Morocco. The result of a conflict between undisciplined hordes and the science of European warfare cannot be doubtful. But there are elements in this contest which perhaps have not been well understood. It is not with the Arab populations of those countries with which France has chiefly to contend. That, indeed, is the more intellectual but smaller portion of the people of Algeria and Morocco. The more ferocious and larger portion of that population consists of the aboriginal Berbers, the ancient Numidians, and Mauritanians. The Romans term this race _genus insuperabile bello_――“unconquerable in war.” It remains to be determined if they have lost that proud appellation.’

‘To form a correct conception of the Sahara,’ says a writer in the Edinburgh Review (No. 169), condensing the information contained in some of the recent French publications on the subject, ‘our readers must dismiss from their minds all loose and fantastic conceptions which have been attached, from time immemorial, to the interior of Northern Africa. Instead of a torrid region, where boundless steppes of burning sand are abandoned to the roving horsemen of the Desert, and to beasts of prey, and where the last vestiges of Moorish civilization expire long before the traveler arrives at Negroland and the savage communities of the interior, the Sahara is now ascertained to consist of a vast archipelago of oases; each of them peopled by a tribe of the Moorish race or its offsets, more civilized, and more capable of receiving the lessons of civilization, than the houseless Arabs of the Tell (the mountainous tract lying between the Great Desert and the sea); cultivating the date-tree with application and ingenuity, inhabiting walled towns, living under a regular government, for the most part of a popular origin; carrying to some perfection certain branches of native manufactures, and keeping up an extensive system of commercial intercourse with the northern and central parts of the African continent, and from Mogador to Mecca, by the enterprise and activity of their caravans. Each of the oases of the Sahara, which are divided from one another by sandy tracts, bearing shrubs and plants fit only for the nourishment of cattle, presents an animated group of towns and villages. Every village is encircled by a profusion of fruit-bearing trees. The palm is the monarch of their orchards, as much by the grace of its form, as by the value of its productions; and the pomegranate, the fig-tree, and the apricot cluster around its lofty stem. The lions and other beasts of prey with which poetry has peopled the African wilds, are to be met with only in the mountains of the Tell, never in the plains of the Sahara. The robber tribes of the Tuaricks frequent the southern frontier of the Sahara, and the last tracts of habitable land which intervene between these oases and the real Desert; but in the Sahara itself, communications, carried on after the fashion of the country, are regular and secure. War is, indeed, of frequent occurrence between the neighboring tribes, either for the possession of disputed territories, or the revenge of supposed injuries; but all that is yet known of these singular communities shows them to be living in a completely constituted state of society, eminently adapted to the peculiar part of the globe which they inhabit, governed by the strong traditions of a primitive people, and fulfilling with energy and intelligence the strange vocations of their life.’

‘Almost all the Sahara tribes,’ says M. Carette, a French captain of engineers, who has contributed much to clear up our notions of this portion of Africa, ‘are accustomed to a system of annual peregrination, which must have existed from time immemorial, inasmuch as it is based upon the nature of the climate and the produce, and the primary wants of their existence. This general movement is commonly performed in the following manner:――During the winter and spring the tribes are collected in the waste tracts of the Sahara, which, at this season of the year, supply water and fresh vegetation, but they never remain more than three or four days on any one spot; and when the pasture is exhausted, they strike their tents, and go to establish themselves elsewhere. Towards the end of the spring they pass through the towns of the Sahara, where their merchandise is deposited. They load their camels with dates and woollen stuffs, and then turn their steps towards the north, taking with them their whole wandering city――women, dogs, herds, and tents――for it is at this season that the springs begin to dry and the plants to wither on the Sahara, at the same time that the corn is ripe in the Tell. There they arrive at the moment of the harvest, when corn is abundant and cheap, and thus they take a double advantage of the season, by abandoning the waste as it becomes arid, and seeking their fresh stock of provisions in the north, when the markets are overstocked with grain. The summer they pass in this country, in commercial activity, exchanging their dates and woollen manufactured goods for corn, raw wool, sheep, and butter; whilst their herds are allowed to browse freely upon the lands, which lie fallow after the gathering in of the harvest. The signal for the return homewards is given at the end of the summer; the camels are reloaded, the tents again struck, and the wandering city once more marches forth, as it came, in short day’s journeys towards the south. The Sahara is regained about the middle of October, the period when the dates are ripe. A month is passed in gathering and storing this fruit; another is devoted to the exchange of the wheat, and barley, and raw wool, for the year’s dates and the woollen stuffs――the produce of the yearly labor of the women. When all this business is concluded, and the merchandise stored away, the tribes quit the towns, and lead their flocks and herds from pasture-land to pasture-land among the waste tracts of the Sahara, until the following summer calls for a renewal of the same journey, the same system of trade.

‘The Sahara,’ continues M. Carette, ‘is that part of Algeria which is most civilized and most capable of receiving civilization. It is there that habits of precision are most generally diffused, and there that we find the greatest amount of intelligence, activity, and social disposition.’ The only portion of the Sahara which answers to our ideas of an uninterrupted waste of sand, seems to be the most southern belt of it, which adjoins Nigritia, and which is infested by a roving race called the Tuaricks, who conduct a commercial intercourse, especially in slaves, between the negro countries and the oases of the more northern parts of the Sahara. ‘These Tuaricks,’ says M. Carette, ‘pretend to be of Turkish descent, and affect to treat the Arabs with disdain. They are tall, strong, of slender make and of fair complexion, with the exception of a few of mixed blood. They wear a head-dress, one of the ends of which covers the whole face except the eyes; and almost all, whether rich or poor, have their feet bare, because, according to their own account, they never go on foot.’ The southern Tuaricks keep the towns of the Soudan in a constant state of blockade, hunting down the negroes in their neighborhood, and carrying them off for sale.