Travels Of Richard And John Lander Into The Interior Of Africa For The Discovery Of The Course And Termination Of The Niger By Robert Huish
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Unfortunately, Of All The Sickly Climates Of Africa,
This Is Perhaps The Most Pestilential, And Mr. Nicholls, Before
Commencing His Journey, Fell A Victim To The Epidemic Fever.
Another German named Roentgen, recommended also by Blumenbach,
undertook to penetrate into the interior of Africa by way of Morocco.
He was described as possessing an unblemished character, ardent zeal
in the cause, with great strength both of mind and body.
Like
Horneman, he made himself master of Arabic, and proposed to pass for
a Mahommedan. Having in 1809 arrived at Mogadore, he hired two
guides, and set out to join the Soudan caravan. His career, however,
was short indeed, for soon after his body was found at a little
distance from the place whence he started. No information could ever
be obtained as to the particulars of his death, but it was too
probably conjectured that his guides murdered him for the sake of his
property.
CHAPTER X.
We are now entering upon the narrative of a series of the most
extraordinary adventures which ever befel the African travellers, in
the person of an illiterate and obscure seaman, of the name of Robert
Adams, who was wrecked on the western coast of Africa, in the
American ship Charles, bound to the isle of Mayo, and who may be said
to have been the first traveller who ever reached the far-famed city
of Timbuctoo.
The place where the Charles was wrecked was called Elgazie, and the
captain and the whole of the crew were immediately taken prisoners by
the Moors. On their landing, the Moors stripped the whole of them
naked, and concealed their clothes under ground; being thus exposed
to a scorching sun, their skins became dreadfully blistered, and at
night they were obliged to dig holes in the sand to sleep in, for the
sake of coolness.
About a week after landing, the captain of the ship was put to death
by the Moors, for which the extraordinary reason was given, that he
was extremely dirty, and would not go down to the sea to wash
himself, when the Moors made signs for him to do so.
After they had remained about ten or twelve days, until the ship and
its materials had quite disappeared, the Moors made preparations to
depart, and divided the prisoners amongst them. Robert Adams and two
others of the crew were left in the possession of about twenty Moors,
who quitted the sea coast, having four camels, three of which they
loaded with water, and the other with fish and baggage. At the end of
about thirty days, during which they did not see a human being, they
arrived at a place, the name of which Adams did not hear, where they
found about thirty or forty tents, and a pool of water surrounded by
a few shrubs, which was the only water they had met with since
quitting the coast.
In the first week of their arrival, Adams and his companions being
greatly fatigued, were not required to do any work, but at the end of
that time, they were put to tend some goats and sheep, which were the
first they had seen.
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