After
Riding Nearly Five Miles Through The Streets, Pressed Upon By The Escort,
And Almost Stunned By The Noise Of The Musicians, The Weary Travellers At
Length Reached The Palace.
The king sat under a verandah, with two
umbrellas spread above him, surrounded by above 400 of his wives, and
many of his chief men.
He was dressed in two long cotton robes, decorated
with strings of glass beads, with a pasteboard crown, covered with
cotton, upon his head. They dismounted at about 20 yards distance, and
walked up close to the monarch, who rose and cordially shook hands with
them, repeatedly vociferating, "Ako! ako!" which means, "How do you do?"
at which his chief men and wives gave loud cheers. A house was assigned
to the English, and each day they received a plentiful supply of
provisions.
Under various pretences they were detained at this place for the space of
seven weeks. The Quorra or Niger was only about thirty miles distant to
the eastward; but though the king had promised to afford them every
facility for reaching it, one delay took place after another. He
endeavoured to deter them by false accounts of the dangerous nature of
the route, in consequence of an alleged incursion of the Fellatahs, and
insurrection of the Houssa slaves. At last, however, he suffered them to
set out, by the kingdom of Borgoo, towards Houssa.
They now entered the Borgoo country. They passed several villages which
had been pillaged and burnt by the Fellatahs; indeed, the whole country
bore testimony to the ravages of war. Lander gives a spirited account of
an adventure which happened to him in this part of the country. "We left
a village at four o'clock in the afternoon; and the horse on which I rode
being in better condition than the others, I was considerably in advance
of the rest of the party, when the animal came to a sudden halt, and all
my endeavours could not make him proceed. There he stood like a block of
marble, keeping his eye riveted on something that was approaching us, and
I had scarcely time to consider what it could be, when a fine antelope
bounded before me with incredible swiftness, and in the next moment two
huge lions, with mane and tail erect, crossed the path but a couple of
yards from the horse's head, almost with equal speed, and covered with
foam. A tremendous roar, which made the forest tremble, informed me in
another minute that the lions had overtaken their prey; but the
sudden - and unexpected appearance of these ferocious animals startled me
as much as it had intimidated the horse before, and I hastened back to
the party, my poor beast trembling violently the whole of the way.
Fortunately the lions, which were male and female, were so eager in the
chase that both the horse and its rider were unobserved by them,
otherwise it might have gone hard with me, for I saw not the slightest
chance of escaping.
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