Greig, Esq., Acting Chief Secretary to the Government of Malta, dated
August 12, 1823.
. . . Major Denham (whom I have the pleasure of knowing) will, I am
persuaded, consider himself fortunate in the selection you have made, as
he will find in Mr. Toole a zealous and able Assistant as well as a most
Gentlemanly Companion.
Did I not consider the present Undertaking as likely to prove of
advantage to Toole, I should particularly regret his departure from the
Regiment at this time, as, in consequence of the intended departure of
Lieutenant Penny for the Continent, it was my intention to have
appointed him to do the duty of Adjutant during the absence of that
Officer.
Extract from letter of Consul Warrington to Robert Wilmot Horton, Esq.,
dated Tripoli, August 25, 1823.
SIR,
I have had already the honor to inform you that in consequence of Mr.
Tyrwhitt’s Health not allowing him again to join the Mission, that I had
applied to the Lt. Governor of Malta to send a Gentleman instead of Him,
and He has accordingly been pleased to approve of Ensign Toole of the
80th Regiment joining the Mission as Assistant to Major Denham.
I have no hesitation to declare that the Public Service will be the
gainer by the Exchange, as I can safely say I never saw a finer young
man, or one more calculated for the undertaking. . . .
Extract from letter of Consul Warrington to R. Wilmot Horton, Esq.,
dated Tripoli, December 20, 1823.
. . . This Morning I have been informed Mr. Tyrwhitt is in Malta on his
way here. I am most happy to hear it, as I am confident there is full
Employment in the Interior for the whole Mission. The Road is as free as
I always said it was, and the Inst. Mr. Tyrwhitt arrives I will send Him
off. . . .
Extract from letter of Consul Warrington to Dr. Oudney, dated January
17, 1824.
MY DEAR SIR,
The arrival of Mr. Tyrwhitt and his appointment to the Mission will
afford you all, without doubt, much satisfaction. As it will be about
three weeks before he leaves this, I forward a Courier with copies of
Dispatches for you and Major Denham, which I have received from the
Colonial Office. . . .
Your little godson, Walter Bornow,[580] is now under the Vaccine
Inoculation, from whose Arm I send you the Matter, and Buttabel[581]
writes to state its introduction here and the efficacy of it. I know no
one whose Natural Disposition and extensive Ability is so devoted to the
benefit of our Fellow Creatures as your own, and I think you will evince
it by endeavouring to introduce the Vaccine. . . .
Extract from letter of Consul Warrington to Mr. Toole, dated Tripoli,
January 21, 1824.
. . . His Lordship, I am glad to say, approves of your appointment, and
has ordered £100 per annum salary being allowed you as well as Mr.
Tyrwhitt. . . .
Extract from letter of Consul Warrington to R. Wilmot Horton, Esq.,
dated Tripoli, February 24, 1824.
. . . 28 Feb. I took leave of Mr. Tyrwhitt at Melra yesterday morning,
fifty miles from this. . . .
Extract from letter of Major Denham to Consul Warrington, dated Kouka,
April 16, 1824.
. . . My amiable and clever companion and friend, Ernest Stuart Toole,
who really deserved all that his Friends at Malta wrote about him, has
fallen a victim to that Fever of this Country with which I have seen so
many attacked.[582] He died at Angala, a town about 60 miles South East
of where I am now writing, on the 26th of last February. . . .
He was most generally beloved here, particularly by the Sheikh, with
whom we used sometimes to pass an hour together in his Garden; and
indeed I believe we all might have died without creating the sensation
that my poor friend’s death has occasioned. . . .
Assisted by the Sultan’s slaves, Columbus[583] and myself laid him in a
deep grave to the N.W. of the Town.[584] . . .
A few more details of Toole’s death are given below.
Extract from letter of Denham to H. Greig, Esq. [who from an endorsement
on the back we learn was Toole’s brother-in-law], dated Kouka, March 10,
1824. [R. G. S.]
. . . He swallowed a little tea and seemed revived; about 6 he attempted
to speak, but could articulate intelligibly nothing but the word Mother
two or three times, and from that time until half-past 11 on the same
day, when he breathed his last, he scarcely moved, and expired without
even a struggle or a groan. . . . Almost the last words he uttered were
requests that his papers . . . should in case of any accident befalling
him be delivered by me into your hands. . . . His request I shall,
please God, comply with. . . . His sketches will, I think, be valuable,
very valuable, and should I not be permitted to return myself, I do hope
that with any notes of mine that may be considered worthy of publishing,
they may be given to the world, for any literary fame that my exertions
may entitle me to will lose half its value in my estimation if the name
of my amiable colleague is not coupled with my own. . . .
[I have not been able to trace these papers or sketches, in spite of
kind assistance from E. L. Bonavia, Esq., of the Chief Secretary’s
Office, Malta, and from the Crown Agents. Mr. A. C. Maberly of Eccles,
whose wife was a great-niece of Greig, informs me that none of Greig’s
papers have been preserved.]
Extract from letter of Major Denham to Consul Warrington, dated Kouka,
May 23, 1824.
MY DEAR SIR,
Mr. Tyrwhitt arrived here on the 20th in good health, after
performing the journey with great Expedition. Nothing can be more
satisfactory than the Letters of which he was the Bearer, and the
Presents for the Sheikh were everything that could be wished.
I send you, according to an Old Promise, a Bottle of the Niger Water. .
. .
Extract from letter of Consul Warrington to R. Wilmot Horton, Esq.,
dated Tripoli, August 18, 1824.
. . . I shall send four Spears and a Shield and a Bottle of Niger Water
(which I had the whim to request might be sent me) to you, and I shall
feel flattered if you accept. Of no value but as curiosities. I have
another bottle, and in drinking success to the Mission I hope I shall
find its efficacy in inspiring me with additional zeal for the Promotion
of Discovery. . . .
[There seems to have been a craze for Niger water. Barth promises to
drink a friend’s health in Niger water, vid. Benton, _Notes on Some
Languages, &c._, p. 298.]
Extract from letter of Denham to Lord Bathurst, dated Kouka, May 23,
1824. [R. G. S.]
. . . I have filled and secured in the best way that I am able, a stone
bottle with the Niger water; it was taken from a spot about two miles
from the embouchure of that River.
[In the same letter he suggests that the R. Yo or Wobe is the
continuation of the Niger. This water was probably therefore bottled
somewhere near where the Yo flows into Lake Chad.
Even at the present day it is a common saying that if you have once
drunk from the River Niger, you will always return to the Coast.]
Extract from letter of Mr. Tyrwhitt to Consul Warrington, dated Woodi,
Sept. 6, 1824.
MY DEAR CONSUL,
The Travellers having at last determined on returning to England, I
have accompanied them thus far on their road, it having been settled
that I should remain at Kouka as Vice-Consul in compliance of the wishes
of the Sheik till Lord Bathurst’s pleasure shall be known. . . .
I must confess that the remaining behind does not afford a very pleasant
or very cheering Prospect, but I hope under all circumstances I have
acted for the best, and that the step I have taken may meet with
approbation. . . .
[Tyrwhitt died at Kuka on October 22, 1824, and his death was reported
to Warrington by the Sheikh, who also sent an inventory of his effects
(which included 52 books), cf. Denham, vol. ii, p. 434. It does not
appear what eventually became of his property. It was to be handed over
to Capt. Pearce, who accompanied Clapperton on his second expedition,
and who seems to have been intended to be Consul in Bornu. Pearce,
however, died soon after landing on the Coast. War had broken out
between Sokoto and Bornu, and Clapperton was unable to revisit the
latter country. No attempt to re-establish the consulship appears to
have been made until the expedition of Richardson and Barth in the
’fifties.]
(_c_) =Hillman=
Another member of the expedition was a naval shipwright named William
Hillman, a native of Somersetshire. He appears to have been a typical
old salt, but in spite of constant ill health reached England again in
safety. His pay was £120 per annum (vid. Denham, Introductory Chapter).
Extract from letter of Major Denham to Consul Warrington, dated ‘Kouka
in the Kingdom of Bornou, 4 April 1823, Thermr 104 in the Hut’.
. . . Old Chips sometimes causes me to laugh, which does my heart good,
he has such a knack of rallying from Death’s door almost that his
illness seems to have no danger in it. Drink Grog he will whenever he
can get it, tho’ it kills him. He told me the other evening that he had
made up his mind not to learn ‘Harribik’. ‘I can’t make no hand on it,’
said he, ‘so I get Columbo to teach me a little Hitalian, for I tell
you, B—— the Navy Board. I hope the Colonial Board will provide for me,
who knows but what I may be a King’s Messenger, and the King, God Bless
him, may say, Hillman or Mr. Hillman, here take this letter to Hitaly,
why I must know Hitalian for that. . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
Sunday, April 6, 1823.
Oh for a glass of the Bashaw’s cold punch. We had yesterday a most
suffocating day with Therm. at 104. This bids fair to be just such
another. The water here is worse than at many places on the Road, altho’
here it is a little Cooler, for there we drank it about the heat of tea.
I found but about three bottles of Rum on my return to Mourzouk, and
Hillman, when I complained, tho’ Grogy at the time, said, ‘Why I’m not
the man to say a word against another, No, No, but that are little
Tyrwhitt did drink, by G—— like Winkins—for myself I can’t touch liquor
now.’
Extract from letter of Consul Warrington to R. Wilmot Horton, Esq.,
dated Tripoli, June 13, 1824.
. . . In one of Earl Bathurst’s Dispatches he suggested the propriety of
Mr. Hillman’s constructing a Boat to explore the outlet of the Great
Lake.
The idea was so good and so obviously beneficial for the object of the
Research, that I followed up His Lordship’s suggestion by requesting the
Boat may be built at Malta in that Portable way to be carried on two
Camels, and taken to Pieces and put together without difficulty. The
Government of Malta kindly acceded to my wishes, and Mr. Simonds, a most
scientific gentleman, is now engaged in constructing one. . . .
[We hear no more of this boat, but it is interesting in view of Barth
and Overweg’s famous boat. From a letter of Columbus[585] to a friend in
Tripoli it appears that some of the members of the expedition did embark
in boats (presumably native canoes) and navigate the waters of Chad for
a short distance.]
Denham’s views are given in the following:
Extract from fragment of a letter from Denham to Lord Bathurst, dated
June 18, 1824. [R. G. S.]
. . . Without two boats could be built to carry fifty men each with
fire-arms they would stand but a bad chance with the Biddoomy on the
Lake. Hillman says that one shipwright alone could not build a boat of
any kind, and he has certainly never since our arrival here enjoyed a
sufficiently good state of health for him to make the attempt had it
been requisite.
The following is a description of the Sheikh’s victory over the Baghirmi
invaders:
Extract from letter of Major Denham to Consul Warrington, dated Kouka,
April 16, 1824.
DEAR SIR,
Our minds have been greatly relieved within the last ten days by a
victory obtained by the Sheikh’s people over a very large force of the
Sultan of Baghermi, headed by two hundred of the principal persons in
his Kingdom, including nine of his sons, seven of whom are amongst the
killed and one a prisoner. . . .
The two Guns[586] for which Hillman had made Carriages and myself
Cartridges with Canisters holding 16 Musket balls each, appear to have
done great execution, altho’ only fired once, and have greatly alarmed
the people, even in whose defence they were levelled. . . .
A fuller account of the battle is contained in the following:
Extract from letter of Denham to his brother Charles, dated Kouka, April
18, 1824. [R. G. S.]
. . . The Sheikh advanced to within 200 yards before he unmasked his
little guns, supported by about fifty slaves and Arabs with fire-arms,
who were formed to the right and left, while immediately in the rear he
appeared himself at the head of his Kanemboo infantry with the double
barrelled English gun in his hand and an ammunition belt on his
shoulders dressed in a simple barracan like an Arab. He had told the
Chiefs previously that it was his intention to fight on foot, that he
expected all the Arabs to follow his example, and to encourage the
slaves who were but young at the use of the firelock. . . . He placed
his two Chiefs, Barca Gana and Ali Gana, on each flank with the Bornou
and Shouaa horse, with orders if attacked, to make the best of it, but
on no account to assist him. The Baghermi, who made for his Green Flag
in one solid mass, were not a little alarmed at the effects of the guns
at such a distance, . . . and a volley from the Arabs added to the
confusion. They now fell back on the Bornou horse, who as usual gave
way, and the attack of the Kanemboo with the Sheik at their head alone
decided the fate of the day. . . . The little stream, called Gambalarou,
near which the battle was fought . . . is said to have run red.
Again, Denham, vol. ii, p. 415, it is recorded that Hillman made a
covered cart, to be used as a carriage or conveyance for the Sheikh’s
wives; the wheels were hooped with iron, and it was extremely strong,
though neither light nor handsome.
Extract from letter of Hillman to Consul Warrington, dated Tripoli, Feb.
11, 1825.
HOND. SIR.
After many difficulties I have got safe and sound once more in
Tripoli, thank God. . . . I have taken the Liberty of sending a Lion’s
Skin, which I trust you will be pleased to accept . . .
With every due respect
Your most obliged
& very humble
servt.
W. HILLMAN.
Hillman was sent home in charge of the animals and baggage, via the long
sea route (vid. Nelson, p. 94).
(_d_) =Sheikh El Kanemy= [_Shehu Lamino_]
The enlightened character of this ruler is made very clear in Denham’s
book and in the Correspondence. The two following extracts are only
quoted to show the style in which he was addressed by the British Consul
at Tripoli, and the type of articles he valued as presents. Bornu is
very deficient in fruit and vegetables, and even the efforts of the
British Administration have not been very successful in inducing the
present native authorities to take serious steps to remedy the
deficiency.[587]
Letter from Consul Warrington to Sheikh Lamino [El Kanemy].
MOST EXCELLENT AND NOBLE SIR,
May the Great God who directs the Prosperity and happiness of all
Mankind reward you for the Kindness and attention which you have been
pleased to show my Countrymen, and that you will continue the same and
extend your Powerful Protection to any place they may wish to go is my
fervent Prayer.
Your three Sons, I am most happy to say, are about to return to their
most respected Parent, and I sincerely hope they may arrive safe and
find you in good health.[588]
My August King and Master has been pleased to order some Presents to be
sent you as a small token of that respect He feels towards you for your
great liberality and kindness towards his Servants . . .
I send you by this opportunity a Saddle, Bridle, &c., as a Personal Mark
of my great esteem and respect towards you.[589]
I beg you will at all times command me whenever you may send any Person
or Persons down here and that you may enjoy Health, Strength, and
Happiness is the ardent wish of your Sincere Friend and Servant
HANMER WARRINGTON.
Extract from letter of Major Denham to Consul Warrington, dated Kouka,
April 26, 1824.
. . . The Sheikh begs you will send him by the earliest opportunity the
following articles, and for which he says he shall pay me.
Seeds, both flower and vegetable.
Fifty locks of guns.
Tea.
Winter melon seeds.
A set of small Cairo coffee cups.
Two or three Glass cups with handles, holding a pint or thereabouts.
4 Turkish Coffee pots.
[Two boxes were sent to the Sheikh by Denham after his return to
Tripoli; the extract printed below concerns them. The presents brought
by Tyrwhitt are mentioned in Denham and included swords, pistols, gold
watches, and rockets.]
Extract from a letter of Denham to the Sheikh, dated December 4, 1824,
apparently from somewhere in Fezzan.
. . . Ibrahim will give you a box in which is Tea, Sugar, Coffee, the
glass cups you wrote for, two Coffee Pots and some Flints, and my friend
Said will give you 50 Gun Locks and a small box containing coffee cups
and seeds. You will also find two Musical snuff-boxes which my sister
begs you will accept for the kindness you have shewn her brother . . .
[The Sheikh sent presents to the King of England.]
Extract from letter of Denham to Mr. Wilmot Horton, dated 44 Lower Brook
Street, June 1, 1825.
. . . A horse from about the 10th Parallel of North Latitude with the
‘Libida’ or cloath covering wadded with cotton, which they use in battle
as a defence from the poisoned arrows; four parrots, one of which died
on the journey across the desert, two ostrich skins, a large box of
‘zibet’ or musk from the civet cat, and twelve specimens of the
manufactures of Soudan and the towns in the interior of the Kingdom of
Bornou, to which he added one of his largest tents entirely of Bornou
manufacture. These were all embarked on board the Brig _Britannia_
previous to my leaving Leghorn, with several animals and birds, with all
the minerals, plants, and other articles we had collected in the
country.’[590]
(_e_) =Cost of the Mission.=
Extract from letter of Consul Warrington to Earl Bathurst, dated
Tripoli, September 11, 1825.
. . . In my office the sums drawn for amount to £8575 17_s._ 7_d._ The
£5000 to the Bashaw[591] reduces this sum to £3790, out of which must be
deducted the 2500$,[592] say £530, will leave the expenditure at £3260
17_s._ 7_d._ Say the mission existed for three years and a half, which
would make £931 13_s._ 7_d._ per annum . . .
[Footnote 556: Obituary notices appear in _Georgian Era_, iii. 75, 82;
_Annual Register_ for 1828, pp. 210, 495; and _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for
1828, pt. i, p. 568.]
[Footnote 557: i.e. Marshal Beresford, in command of the Portuguese
armies.]
[Footnote 558: The battle of Toulouse was fought on April 10, 1814. The
8th is now The King’s (Liverpool Regt.). I have not been able to trace
at what period Denham was transferred to it. Perhaps it is a clerical
error of the General’s. The _Army List_ never shows him as in the 8th
Regt.]
[Footnote 559: 7th Portuguese Brigade, attached to 6th British Division.
Vid. Oman, _Wellington’s Army_, p. 372.]
[Footnote 560: Now 2nd Batt. Dorsetshire Regt. Denham’s diary during the
Waterloo campaign and afterwards in Paris is in the R. G. S.]
[Footnote 561: Now the Leicestershire Regt. His original commissions,
now among the Denham papers in the possession of the Royal Geographical
Society, show him as Captain in the 17th Foot and Major in the Army.]
[Footnote 562: For an interesting account of the duties of this post and
for the evidence given by Mr. Reffell, Denham’s predecessor, vid.
_Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the state of Sierra Leone_,
2 parts, 1827. A few sentences are printed on p. 14 of H. C. Lukach,
_Bibliography of Sierra Leone_, Oxford, 1910.]
[Footnote 563: In the four-volume edition of Denham, vol. iv, p. 256, it
is mentioned that Clapperton’s grandmother was a daughter of Col.
Campbell of Glenlyon, the officer in command of the troops who committed
the massacre of Glencoe.]
[Footnote 564: Thus Nelson, but, according to M‘Diarmid, Clapperton
wrote to Mr. Scott, a banker of Annan, who applied to General Dirom
[i.e. Lt.-Gen. Alexander Dirom, vid. _Dict. Nat. Biog._], whose wife
applied to her cousin, Capt. Briggs of the _Clorinde_.]
[Footnote 565: Thus Nelson, but I have been unable to trace it either at
the Admiralty or the Record Office, in spite of the kind assistance of
the Admiralty Librarian, W. G. Perrin, Esq. Cf. Appendix XX.]
[Footnote 566: For details of his death vid. p. 277 of the account of
his expedition. His grave has never been identified, but a brass
memorial tablet has been put up in the Sokoto Provincial Office by Major
Alder Burdon, C.M.G., first British Resident of Sokoto Province.]
[Footnote 567: There is a very fine portrait of him in the quarto
edition of the account of his expedition to Sokoto. From this and
frequent references in the Tripoli correspondence, it is obvious that he
was an exceptionally handsome and powerful officer. Cf. Appendix XVII.]
[Footnote 568: p. 176: ‘At no time am I possessed of a sweet and passive
temper.’]
[Footnote 569: Sir John Barrow, who edited Clapperton’s journal of his
second expedition, remarks on p. xviii that Clapperton was evidently a
man of no education. This is too severe. His letters are not ill-
expressed, though occasionally somewhat incoherent.]
[Footnote 570: i.e. Lamino.]
[Footnote 571: Denham came to the conclusion that the Bashaw of Tripoli
was wilfully delaying the Mission. He therefore returned from Mourzouk
to Tripoli and embarked for Europe, in order to get the Home Government
to expedite matters. He was overtaken, however, at Marseilles, by an
urgent message from the Bashaw, returned to Tripoli, and was soon able
to get matters settled to his satisfaction. His action was both prompt
and successful, but it would have been more tactful to have informed his
companions of his plans.]
[Footnote 572: When Mr. Hanns Vischer was in Tripoli in 1906, he was
presented by the heir of Col. Warrington with a book on Geometry,
bearing on the fly-leaf the inscription, ‘Walter Oudney, M.D., Surgeon
R.N. and H.B.M.’s Col. at Bornou’. The book is by Leslie, published by
Constable in 1817. Mr. Vischer presented the book to the Bornu
Provincial Library.]
[Footnote 573: In a letter to Warrington, dated Kuka, March 31, 1823,
Clapperton says: ‘He has been at the Royal Military College and
Greenwhich Observatory, I never was.’]
[Footnote 574: The Arab merchant who was head of the ‘Kaffila’ or
caravan in whose company the travellers journeyed from Tripoli to
Bornu.]
[Footnote 575: Vid. note on p. 345.]
[Footnote 576: He appears to have assumed the additional surname of
Horton about this time.]
[Footnote 577: Mr. Greig was Acting Chief Secretary to the Government of
Malta. He retired in 1846, and died in 1873.]
[Footnote 578: Now the 2nd Batt. South Staffordshire Regt.]
[Footnote 579: This was also his dying request (vid. Denham, vol. ii, p.
26), and it was granted by Earl Bathurst.]
[Footnote 580: I do not know what became of little Walter Bornow. I fear
he must have died young, as he does not appear among the numerous
Warringtons in the Tripoli Consular Correspondence in the ’fifties.]
[Footnote 581: Head Marabout of the Bashaw of Tripoli.]
[Footnote 582: He arrived in Kuka on Dec. 23, 1823—‘a robust, healthy-
looking young man, with a double-barrelled gun slung at his back’ (vid.
Denham, vol. i, p. 461).]
[Footnote 583: _Alias_ Adolphus Simkins, a native of St. Vincent, and a
sort of dragoman to the Mission. He signs himself A. A. Simkins, but
Denham, Introductory Chapter, spells it Sympkins. He accompanied
Clapperton on his second expedition. There was also a Gibraltar Jew
named Jacob attached to the Mission as ‘store-keeper’.]
[Footnote 584: Cf. Denham, vol. ii, pp. 23-6. Toole was only twenty-two
when he died.]
[Footnote 585: The letter is in dog-Italian, which I am unfortunately
unable to read.]
[Footnote 586: Vid. Denham, vol. i, p. 429. They were four-pounders,
presented to the Sheikh by the Sultan of Fezzan. Denham also relates
that Hillman made a large chair, ‘which pleased the Sheikh excessively’.
The Sheikh sent him some ‘gabaga’ [i.e. cotton strips, used at that time
as currency in Bornu], but Hillman returned them, saying: ‘No! the King
of England pays me—I don’t want that: but I am much obliged to the
Sheikh, nevertheless.’
John Belford, Lyon’s shipwright, made gun-carriages and a ‘coach’ for
the Sultan of Mourzuk. Vid. Lyon, p. 179.]
[Footnote 587: For presents sent to Shehu Omar vid. Benton, _Notes,
&c._, pp. 195 and 210.]