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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The Men Took Off Their Caps As They Passed, And The
Women Remained Kneeling.
The market was well supplied with raw
cotton, cloths, oranges, limes, plantains, bananas, onions, pepper,
and gums for soup, boiled yams, and acassous, a paste made of maize
and wrapped in leaves.
A country finely cleared, and diversified with hill and dale, extends
from Jannah to Tshow, distant two short stages. The route then again
entered upon a thickly-wooded tract, with only patches of corn land,
and the roads were dreadfully bad, being partially flooded by heavy
rains. Captain Clapperton here caught a fresh cold, and all the
patients became worse. Dr. Morrison, after being carried in a hammock
as far as Tshow, finding himself grow no better, was left behind,
under the charge of Mr. Houston, who was to see him safe back to the
coast. He, however, expired at Jannah on the 27th. On the same day,
at a town called Engwa, Captain Pearce breathed his last. On this
occasion, Captain Clapperton says, "The death of Captain Pearce has
caused me much concern; for, independently of his amiable qualities
as a friend and companion, he was eminently fitted by his talents,
perseverance, and fortitude, to be of singular service to the
expedition, and on these accounts I deplore his loss, as the greatest
I could have sustained, both as regards my private feelings and the
public service."
On the following morning, the remains of this lamented officer were
interred, in the presence of all the principal people of the town.
The grave was staked round by the inhabitants, and a shed built over
it. An inscription was carved on a board, and placed at the head of
the grave by Lander, Captain Clapperton being unable to sit up, or to
assist in any manner in the mournful ceremony. Thus did Captain
Clapperton see himself bereft of his comrades, and left to pursue his
journey in very painful and distressing circumstances, with only
Richard Lander as his servant, who stood by him in all his fortunes,
and Pascoe, not a very trusty African, whom he had hired at Badagry.
Two days after the interment of Captain Pearce, Mr. Houston joined
Captain Clapperton from Jannah, bearing the intelligence of the death
of Dr. Morrison.
These unfortunate officers had been conveyed thus far, about seventy
miles, in hammocks, by the people of the country, every where
experiencing the kindest attention, lodged in the best houses, and
supplied with every thing that the country afforded. The fear,
however, that continually preyed upon the mind of Lander was
excessive; for the general appearance of Captain Clapperton indicated
that he would soon join his comrades in the grave; he was able
occasionally to ride on horseback, and sometimes to walk, but he was
greatly debilitated, and subject to a high degree of fever. By
anticipation, Lander saw himself a solitary wanderer in the interior
of Africa, bereft of all those resources with which Clapperton was
liberally supplied, and his only hope of deliverance resting on his
being able to accomplish his return to Badagry, literally as a
Christian mendicant. Lander describes the country between Badagry and
Jannah, the frontier town of the kingdom of Youriba, as abounding in
population, well cultivated with plantations of Indian corn,
different kinds of millet, yams, plantains, wherever the surface was
open and free from the noxious influence of dense and unwholesome
forests.
The old caboceer of Jannah was, according to the report of Lander, a
merry, jocose kind of companion. On one occasion, when he was
surrounded by a whole crowd of the natives, and was informed that the
English had only one wife, they all broke out into a loud laugh, in
which the women in particular joined immoderately. The vanity of this
old negro almost exceeded belief; during the ceremony of the
reception of Captain Clapperton and Mr. Houston, he changed his dress
three different times, each time, as he thought, increasing the
splendour of his appearance.
The whole court in which they were received, although very large, was
filled, crowded, and crammed with people, except a place in front,
where the august strangers sat, into which his highness led Captain
Clapperton and Mr. Houston, in each hand, followed by Lander, who,
ever and anon, first to the right, and then to the left, felt a
twitch at the tail of his coat, and on looking to ascertain the
cause, found it to have proceeded from the fair hands of a
bewitching negress, who, casting upon him a look of irresistible
fascination, accompanied by a smile from a pair of huge pouting lips,
between which appeared a row of teeth, for which one of the toothless
grannies at Almack's would have given half her dowry, seemed to be
anxious of trying the experiment of how far the heart of an
Englishman was susceptible of the tender passion, especially when
excited by objects of such superlative beauty. It may be supposed
that neither Clapperton nor Houston had as yet taken any lessons in
the art and mystery of African dancing, and as to waltzing, neither
of them felt any great inclination to be encircled in the arms of a
negress, who, although she might be young and graceful in her
attitudes, had a scent about her of stinking rancid oil, which was
not very agreeable to the olfactory nerves of the delicate Europeans.
However, it was the etiquette of the court, - and every court, from
the Cape of Good Hope to the country of Boothia, that is, if a court
were ever held in the latter place, - is cursed with the ridiculous
forms of ceremony and etiquette; it must be repeated, that at the
court which his highness the caboceer of Jannah, in the plenitude of
his official importance, held at that place, it was a rule of
etiquette, that every stranger, of whatever rank or nation, should
choose for himself a partner, wherewith to dance an African fandango
or bolero; and it may be easily supposed that, when the Europeans
looked around them, and saw the African beauties squatting on their
haunches, or reclining, in graceful negligence, on banks of mud, a
great difficulty existed as to whom they should select to be their
partners in the African quadrille.
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