Captain Clapperton being near that part of the Quorra, where Mungo Park
perished, our traveller thought he might get some information of this
melancholy event. The head man's story is this:--"That the boat stuck
fast between two rocks; that the people in it laid out four anchors
a-head; that the water falls down with great rapidity from the rocks, and
that the white men, in attempting to get on shore, were drowned; that
crowds of people went to look at them, but the white men did not shoot at
them as I had heard; that the natives were too much frightened either to
shoot at them or to assist them; that there were found a great many
things in the boat, books and riches, which the Sultan of Boussa has got;
that beef cut in slices and salted was in great plenty in the boat; that
the people of Boussa who had eaten of it all died, because it was human
flesh, and that they knew we white men eat human flesh. I was indebted to
the messenger of Yarro for a defence, who told the narrator that I was
much more nice in my eating than his countrymen were. But it was with
some difficulty I could persuade him that if his story was true, it was
the people's own fears that had killed them; that the meat was good beef
or mutton: that I had eaten more goats' flesh since I had been in this
country than ever I had done in my life; that in England we eat nothing
but fowls, beef, and mutton."--_Clapperton's Travels._
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