A Book of Discovery - M. B. Synge (new ebook reader .txt) 📗

a beautiful people." But when Clapperton asked for leave in order to solve the mystery of the Niger, the Sultan refused, and he was obliged to return to Kuka, where he arrived on 8th July. A week later he was joined by Denham. "It was nearly eight months since we had separated," says Denham, "and I went immediately to the hut where he was lodged; but so satisfied was I that the sunburnt, sickly person that lay extended on the floor, rolled in a dark-blue shirt, was not my companion, that I was about to leave the place, when he convinced me of my error by calling me by my name. Our meeting was a melancholy one, for he had buried his companion. Notwithstanding the state of weakness in which I found Captain Clapperton, he yet spoke of returning to Sudan after the rains." But this was not to be, and a month later we find the two explorers turning homewards to Tripoli, where they arrived at the end of January.

But, with all his long travelling in Africa, Clapperton had not seen the Niger, and, although the effects of his fever had not worn away, he spent but two months in England before he was off again. This time he sailed to the Gulf of Guinea, and from a place on the coast near the modern Lagos he started by a new and untried route to reach the interior of the great Dark Continent. It was September 1825 when he left the coast with his companions. Before the month was over, the other Europeans had died from the pestilential climate of Nigeria, and Clapperton, alone with his faithful servant, Richard Lander, pushed on. At last he saw the great Niger near the spot where Mungo Park and his companions had perished. At Bussa they made out the tragic story of his end. They had descended the river from Timbuktu to Bussa, when the boat struck upon some rocks. Natives from the banks shot at them with arrows; the white men then, seeing all was lost, jumped into the river and were drowned. The Niger claimed its explorer in the end, and the words of Mungo Park must have occurred to Clapperton as he stood and watched: "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 least die on the Niger."

From Bussa, Clapperton made his way to Kano and Sokoto; but on 13th April 1827, broken down by fever, he died in the arms of his faithful servant. With his master's papers and journal, Lander made his way home, thus establishing for the first time a direct connection between Benin and Tripoli, the west coast and the north.

Still the mouth of the Niger had not been found. This discovery was reserved for this very Richard Lander and his brother John.

Just a year after the death of Clapperton a young Frenchman, Réné Caillé, tempted by the offer of ten thousand francs offered by the French Geographical Society for the first traveller who should reach that mysterious city, entered Timbuktu 20th April 1829, after a year's journey from Sierra Leone. And from his pen we get the first direct account of the once important city. "At length," he says, "we arrived safely at Timbuktu, just as the sun was touching the horizon. I now saw this capital of the Sudan, to reach which had so long been the object of my wishes. To God alone did I confide my joy. I looked around and found that the sight before me did not answer my expectations. I had formed a totally different idea of the grandeur and wealth of it. The city presented nothing but a mass of ill-looking houses, built of earth. Nothing was to be seen in all directions but immense plains of quicksand of a yellowish white colour. The sky was a pale red as far as the horizon, all nature wore a dreary aspect, and the most profound silence prevailed: not even the warbling of a bird was to be heard. The heat was oppressive; not a breath of air freshened the atmosphere. This mysterious city, which has been the object of curiosity for many ages, and of whose civilisation, population, and trade with the Sudan such exaggerated notions have prevailed, is situated in an immense plain of white sand, having no vegetation but stunted trees and shrubs, and has no other resources save its trade in salt."

THE FIRST EUROPEAN PICTURE OF TIMBUKTU THE FIRST EUROPEAN PICTURE OF TIMBUKTU.
From a drawing in Caillé's Tomboctou, 1829.

It is curious to note what a burst of interest was aroused in England at this time with regard to Timbuktu. Thackeray wrote in 1829—

"In Africa (a quarter of the world)
 Men's skins are black, their hair is crisp and curl'd;
 And somewhere there, unknown to public view,
 A mighty city lies, called Timbuktu."

while the same year Tennyson's poem on Timbuktu won for him the prize at Cambridge University for the best poem of the year.

CHAPTER LVI RICHARD AND JOHN LANDER DISCOVER THE MOUTH OF THE NIGER

Lander, the "faithful attendant of the late Captain Clapperton," as he is called in his instructions, was burning to be off again to explore further the mysterious Niger. No pecuniary reward was to be his; he was a poor man, and just for the love of exploring the unknown he started off. He had inspired his brother with a desire to solve the great mystery; so on 22nd February 1830 the two brothers arrived at Cape Coast Castle and made their way to Bussa, which place they entered on 18th June. Sitting on a rock overlooking the spot where Mungo Park had perished, the brothers resolved to "set at rest for ever the great question of the course and termination of the great Niger."

It was 20th September before preparations were completed for the eventful voyage from Bussa to the mouth of the Niger. For provisions they took three large bags of corn and one of beans, a couple of fowls, and two sheep to last a month, while the king added rice, honey, onions, and one hundred pounds of vegetable butter. Then in two native canoes the Landers embarked on the great river, the "Dark Water" as it was more often called, while the crowds who came down to the riverside to bid them farewell knelt with uplifted hands, imploring for the explorers the protection of Allah and their prophet. It was indeed a perilous undertaking; sunken reefs were an ever-present danger, while the swift current ran them dangerously near many jagged rocks. For nearly a month they paddled onward with their native guides in anxiety and suspense, never knowing what an hour might bring forth. On 7th October a curious scene took place when the King of the Dark Water came forth in all his pomp and glory to see the white strangers who were paddling down the great river. Waiting under the shade of a tree, for the morning was very hot, the Landers observed a large canoe paddled by twenty young black men singing as they rowed. In the centre of the boat a mat awning was erected: in the bows sat four little boys "clad with neatness and propriety," while in the stern sat musicians with drums and trumpets. Presently the king stepped forth. He was coal black, dressed in an Arab cloak, Haussa trousers, and a cap of red cloth, while two pretty little boys about ten years of age, acting as pages, followed him, each bearing a cow's tail in his hand to brush away flies and other insects. Six wives, jet black girls in neat country caps edged with red silk, accompanied him. To make some impression on this pompous king, Lander hoisted the "Union flag." "When unfurled and waving in the wind, it looked extremely pretty, and it made our hearts glow with pride and enthusiasm as we looked at the solitary little banner. I put on an old naval uniform coat, and my brother dressed himself in as grotesque and gaudy a manner as our resources would afford; our eight attendants also put on new white Mohammedan robes." Other canoes joined the royal procession and the little flotilla moved down the river. "Never did the British flag lead so extraordinary a squadron," remarks Lander. As the King of the Dark Water stepped on shore the Englishmen fired a salute, which frightened him not a little till the honour was explained. Having now exchanged their two canoes for one of a larger size, they continued their journey down the river.

RICHARD AND JOHN LANDER PADDLING DOWN THE NIGER RICHARD AND JOHN LANDER PADDLING DOWN THE NIGER.
From a drawing in the account of Lander's Travels, 1835.

On 25th October they found the waters of the Niger were joined by another large river known to-day as the Benue, the Mother of Waters, flowing in from the east. After this the banks of the river seemed to grow hilly, and villages were few and far between. "Our canoe passed smoothly along the Niger, and everything was silent and solitary; no sound could be distinguished save our own voices and the plashing of the paddles with their echoes; the song of birds was not heard, nor could any animal whatever be seen; the banks seemed to be entirely deserted, and the magnificent Niger to be slumbering in its own grandeur."

"One can imagine the feelings," says a modern writer, "in such circumstances of the brothers, drifting they knew not whither, in intolerable silence and loneliness on the bosom of a river which had caused the death of so many men who had endeavoured to wrest from it its secret." Two days later a large village appeared, and suddenly a cry rang through the air: "Holloa, you Englishmen! You come here!" It came from a "little squinting fellow" dressed in an English soldier's jacket, a messenger from the Chief of Bonney on the coast, buying slaves for his master. He had picked up a smattering of English from the Liverpool trading ships which came to Bonney for palm-oil from the river. There was no longer any doubt that the mouth of the Niger was not far off, and that the many-mouthed delta was well known to Europeans under the name of the "Oil Rivers" flowing into the Bight of Benin.

Lander pushed on till he had paddled down the Brass River, as one of the many branches was called, when he heard "the welcome sound of the surf on the beach."

The mystery of the Niger, after a lapse of two thousand five hundred years since its existence had been recorded by Herodotus, was solved at last.

CHAPTER LVII ROSS DISCOVERS THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE

The first attempt to discover the North-West Passage by means of steam instead of sail was made by Captain Ross, who, since his expedition in 1819, had been burning to set off again for the Arctic regions. The reward of £20,000 held out to the discoverer of a north-west passage had been repealed, but an old friend, Felix Booth, decided to finance Ross, the Government having refused. "After examining various steamships advertised for sale," says Ross, "I purchased the Victory, which had been once employed as a packet." With food and fuel for one thousand days, and accompanied by his nephew, James Ross, who had been with Parry on his recent Polar voyage, he left England the end of May 1829, not to return for many a long year. Disasters soon began. The Victory began to leak, her engines were defective, and there was nothing for it but to heave up her paddles and trust to sail. Sailing to the northward, they found the sea smooth and the weather so warm that they could dine without a fire and with