The British Government,
However, Afterwards Caused King Boy To Be Paid More Than The Sum Which He
Had Stipulated For.
The Landers suffered much discomfort on board the vessel from the
tyrannical and harsh behaviour of Lake; and they encountered a severe
storm in crossing the bar of the river Nun.
On the 1st of December, they
landed at Fernando Po, where they experienced great friendship and
hospitality from the British residents. Thence they found a passage home
in the Carnarvon, and arrived at Portsmouth on the 10th June 1831.
The great problem of African geography was now solved, and the
enterprising travellers met with the praise so justly due to their
sagacity, prudence, and fortitude. "For several hundred miles of its
lower course, the river was found to form a broad and magnificent
expanse, resembling an inland sea. Yet must the Niger yield very
considerably to the Missouri and Orellana, those stupendous rivers of the
new world. But it appears at least as great as any of those which water
the old continents. There can rank with it only the Nile, and the
Yang-tse-Kiang, or Great River of China. But the upper course of neither
is yet very fully established; and the Nile can compete only in length of
course, not in the magnitude of its stream, or the fertility of the
regions. There is one feature in which the Niger may defy competition
from any river, either of the old or new world. This is the grandeur of
its Delta. Along the whole coast, from the river of Formosa or Benin to
that of Old Calabar, about 300 miles in length, there open into the
Atlantic its successive estuaries, which navigators have scarcely been
able to number. Taking its coast as the base of the triangle or Delta,
and its vertex at Kirree, about 170 miles inland, we have a space of
upwards of 25,000 square miles, equal to the half of England. Had this
Delta, like that of the Nile, been subject only to temporary inundations,
leaving behind a layer of fertilizing slime, it would have formed the
most fruitful region on earth, and might have been almost the granary of
a continent. But, unfortunately, the Niger rolls down its waters in such
excessive abundance, as to convert the whole into a huge and dreary
swamp, covered with dense forests of mangrove, and other trees of
spreading and luxuriant foliage. The equatorial sun, with its fiercest
rays, cannot penetrate these dark recesses; it only exhales from them
pestilential vapours, which render this coast the theatre of more fatal
epidemic diseases than any other, even of Western Africa. That human
industry will one day level these forests, drain these swamps, and cover
this soil with luxuriant harvests, we may confidently anticipate; but
many ages must probably elapse before man, in Africa, can achieve such a
victory over nature."[29]
[29] Edinburgh Review, vol. 55.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
_The Steam Voyage of the Quorra and Alburkah_.
The peculiar characteristic of British enterprise is in general its
practical tendency; wherever a way is opened which promises to afford a
competent return for labour and even hazard, the path is pursued; and
though the advantage may not be immediately held out, the experiment is
nevertheless made. Notwithstanding that the remarkable voyage of which we
are about to give some account, failed in effecting the desired end,
enough was done to shew the possibility of establishing commercial
intercourse between Britain and Interior Africa, when due care and
management are employed in the choice of that season of the year when the
influence of the climate is comparatively little felt.
Some Liverpool merchants being desirous of opening a trade with the
countries on the banks of the Niger, by the exchange of British
manufactures for native produce, fitted out two steam boats: one of
which, the Quorra, was of 150 tons, and of the ordinary construction;
while the other, the Alburkah, was only of 57 tons. The latter vessel was
entirely iron-built, with the exception of her decks; her bottom was 1/4
of an inch in thickness, her sides from 3/18 to 1/8 of an inch. She was
seventy feet in length, 13 in beam, 6-1/2 in depth, and had an engine of
16-horse power. The great inconvenience apprehended from the vessel was,
that from her construction, the crew would suffer much from heat; but so
far from this having been the case, the iron, being an universal
conductor, kept her constantly at the same temperature with the water. To
these vessels was added the Columbine, a sailing brig of 150 tons, which
was intended to remain at the mouth of the river, to receive the goods
brought down by the steam-boats.
Richard Lander volunteered his valuable services to this expedition, - the
last in which he was destined to take part; Messrs. Laird and Oldfield,
with a considerable number of Europeans also embarked. They left England
about the end of July 1832, and arrived off the Nun on the 19th of
October, after having touched at Sierra Leone, Cape Coast Castle, and
other settlements, to lay in provisions, and secure the services of some
Kroomen.[30]
[30] The Kroomen inhabit the country which extends along the coast,
from Simon River to Capes Palmas and Lahoo; they voluntarily engage
themselves in bands to aid the crews of vessels.
Having safely moored the brig, they proceeded to unload the merchandize
on board of her, and to transfer it to the steam-vessels. They then began
to sail up the Nun branch of the Niger. This part of the river is most
unhealthy; it is one entire swamp, covered with mangrove, cabbage, and
palm trees. "The fen-damp rose in the morning cold and clammy to the
feeling, and appeared like the smoke of a damp wood fire." The bodies of
the natives are covered with ulcers and cutaneous eruptions; they spend a
short and miserable life in profligacy.
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