_FILLING UP THE DETAILS._
While Clapperton and Lander were thus bringing the work of Park to a
successful conclusion, and proving the accuracy of M‘Queen’s geography
of the Niger basin, there were others at work in the region which the
labours and death of their great pioneer had made classic ground.
Major Laing, in the course of a Government mission, had travelled from
Sierra Leone to Falaba, in the country of Sulima, and ascertained that
the Niger took its rise in the Highlands of Kurauka, some 70 miles
south-west of Falaba, and not more than 150 miles east of Sierra Leone.
The river itself he was prevented from reaching, but none the less did
he come under the irresistible influence of its fascination.
More than ever had Timbuktu and the Niger become names to conjure with,
as well as to infect men with a species of reckless self-sacrifice that
no amount of past experience, prudence, or common sense could dispel.
As in the case of Lander, and others of his predecessors, having
once tasted the bitter-sweet of African exploration, there could be
no rest for Major Laing until he had gathered again the magic fruit.
Accordingly, after an interval of three years, he once more set forth,
determined to carry his cherished dreams into realisation.
Timbuktu and the Upper Niger were the goals of his journey. Like
Denham and Clapperton, he took Tripoli as his starting-point. Thence
he passed south-west to Ghadamis and the oasis of Twat. Between
the latter and Timbuktu lay the wild wastes of the Sahara--never
trodden by man without extreme risk of encounter with plunder and
bloodshed-loving nomads, and death from thirst or privation. Even
these factors of an African journey had their wild attraction for men
of Laing’s temperament, adding a _sauce piquante_, as it were, to the
otherwise monotonous march and daily routine of worry and privation.
To such, too, the frowning immensity of the Sahara--the frightful
desolation which marks its every feature--and the flaming sun and lurid
heavens that hang above it, have elements which strike them with the
profoundest feelings of awe, and leave an indelible impress on their
minds.
For sixteen days after leaving Twat, Laing underwent all these
sensations in their most striking form; and that his experiences of
desert travel might be complete, he was attacked at night by a party
of Tuareg marauders, and left for dead, with no less than twenty-four
wounds. Thanks, however, to the secret elixir of heroic minds and
the soundness of his constitution, he miraculously recovered, and
undismayed, continued his way to Timbuktu, which was reached on the
18th August 1826.
Laing was the first European who had ever entered that historic city,
which for four centuries had been the loadstone of kings, merchants,
and savants. He arrived in an unhappy hour. Only a short time before
the first waves of the approaching tide of Fulah influence had entered
the region of the Upper Niger. Already Timbuktu had felt its strange
power, though resenting the political position usurped by the
ministers of the new revival.
For a month Laing was allowed to remain unmolested. Then he was
ordered to leave the city of the Faithful. There was no resisting the
mandate, and he passed forth on the 22nd September, only to be foully
murdered two days later by the people who had undertaken to escort him
across the desert. With him unfortunately perished the records of his
observations and inquiries.
Two years later, Caillé, a somewhat illiterate, though persevering and
intrepid Frenchman, entered the city from which Laing had been driven
forth. Years before, this young explorer, in his far-off French home,
had heard the echoes of African enterprise. Inflamed with the romantic
story, he had seen by the blank maps of the continent how much there
was to be done, and what fame there was to be acquired by him who could
make his mark on those still virgin sheets. To be an African traveller
became thenceforth the object of his life. For years he dreamed of and
prepared himself for the work. But it was one thing to dream of--one
thing even to reach the threshold of new lands--and quite another to
penetrate them, as he soon found. Time after time his hopes, when
almost at the point of realisation, were rudely dashed to the ground;
but uncrushed, he waited his time and opportunity, though without
private means, and conscious that the ears of the wealthy and the
powerful were deaf to his schemes and representations.
But while Caillé dreamed and petitioned he also worked. As a
subordinate official under the Government of Sierra Leone, he was
enabled by dint of economy and industry to save the sum of £80. To him
this slender sum appeared the “open sesame” of fame and fortune. It
was the instrument whereby he should open the oyster shell, and gain
the priceless pearl within.
On the 19th April 1827, Caillé left Kakundy, on the River Nunez, and
midway between Sierra Leone and the Gambia, in the company of a small
caravan of Mandingoes. Travelling east, he crossed the country of
Futa Jallon, through which northward ran the upper tributaries of the
Senegal, and eastward those of the Niger. The latter river was reached
at Kurusa, in the district of Kankan, and was found to be even there a
fine stream from eight to ten feet deep.
Having crossed the Niger, he continued east to the country of Wasulu,
a well cultivated and thickly inhabited region. Thence he travelled
north-east, till at length he again reached the banks of the Niger,
a short distance to the west of Jenné. This town he was the first
European to enter, though Park had seen it on his last journey.
From Jenné, Caillé sailed down the Niger in a rudely built vessel of
considerable dimensions to Kabara, the port of Timbuktu, whence he
proceeded on horseback to the city itself.
The aspect of Timbuktu in nowise realised the glowing anticipations of
the traveller. Instead of the wealthy and powerful city, touched with
the glamour of the shining orient, which he had been taught to expect,
there lay before him only a collection of miserable mud buildings,
among which rose several mosques, looking imposing only in comparison
with the rude huts around them. To the north-east and south spread the
immensity of the great desert as one vast plain of burning, repellent
sands, over which the silence of death brooded, except where pariah
dogs or loathsome vultures feasted on the carrion or offal thrown out
of the town. Such was the place in which Commerce had established her
Central African emporium, and gathered together the trading veins
and arteries which ramified more or less throughout the whole of
North-eastern Africa. Here, too, amid these dreary wastes, Moslem
learning had made her seat; and here the religion of Islam had found
an abiding centre from which to radiate its influence into the most
barbarous depths of negro Africa.
Seen thus in relation to its surroundings, its position, and its
functions, the mud huts and rudely built mosques which compose it
acquire a tinge of the sublime, and strike the imagination more even
than the stupendous wonders of a London or a Paris.
For a fortnight Caillé--secure in his disguise--remained in Timbuktu,
after which he set forth with a caravan to cross the desert to Morocco.
Along no other part of the Sahara does the desert appear in such a
terror-striking aspect. Through one tract the caravan had to travel
with all possible expedition for ten days, not a drop of water being
obtainable. The privations endured were indescribable, men and animals
alike being reduced to the direst extremity before water was reached
and their tortures assuaged. Further north similar experiences awaited
them, till the caravan arrived at the River Dra. Thence the march was
performed with comparative comfort by way of Tafilet and the Atlas to
Fez and Tangier, where Caillé arrived on the 18th August 1828.
[Illustration: TIMBUKTU.]
With Lander’s descent of the Niger from Bussa to the sea, the course of
Niger enterprise received a new development and impetus. The glowing
accounts brought back by its explorers of the rich lands and powerful
civilised kingdoms through which it flowed found eager hearers in
England; and now that an entrance had been found by which the heart of
these promising regions could be reached, such hearers were not slow to
act and test in a practical fashion the commercial value of the great
waterway.
In this new movement Macgregor Laird, of Liverpool, was the leading
spirit. Under his instructions two steamers were specially constructed
for the work. Laird himself took command, and with him were associated
Lander, and Lieutenant Allen of the navy, with Dr. Briggs and Mr.
Oldfield as medical attendants.
Hardly had the party entered the Nun branch of the river, in August
1832, when the malaria commenced its ravages, causing the death of a
captain and two seamen. The first business of the expedition was to
find a suitable navigable channel among the many bewildering branches,
creeks, and backwaters which spread a labyrinthine network over the
delta, whose mangrove swamps were “uninviting when descried, repulsive
when approached, dangerous when examined, and horrible and loathsome
when their qualities and their inhabitants were known.” Here the air
reeked with the essence of poisonous odours--damp, clammy, and deadly;
and the nights were made hideous by the never-ceasing attacks of clouds
of mosquitoes and sandflies.
[Illustration: VIEW OF THE NIGER ABOVE LOKOJA.]
For six weeks Laird was engaged in his exploration of the delta,
with the result that eighteen men succumbed to fever. For a time the
expedition threatened to end in the death of the entire party, hardly
one escaping the dire effects of the malaria. But Laird and his
companions were men not easily discouraged or defeated, and at length
they got away from the deadly area, and reached the undivided river
and healthier upper regions. It was like an escape from a loathsome
purgatory to an earthly paradise, when the party sailed into the open
reaches of the noble stream, barred in by tropic forest and swept by
cooling breezes. Viewed commercially,however, the prospect proved
somewhat unsatisfactory, and did not correspond with the glowing
hopes with which the party had left England. There was no thought,
however, of giving way to the first feeling of disappointment, and in
the belief that matters would improve once beyond the barbarous zone,
they continued their way up the river. Unfortunately, they had chosen
the wrong time of the year to make the ascent. Already the river was
falling. More than once the larger of the two steamers grounded on
sand-banks, and finally had to be laid up till the rising of the
waters should set in once more. Attempts to reach Rabba signally
failed, though Laird ascended the Benué some distance in a boat.
In the following season Oldfield and Lander were more successful.
The Benué was ascended to a distance of 104 miles before they were
compelled to return from want of supplies. On the Main Niger they
were also more fortunate than in the previous year. Rabba was safely
reached, and found to contain a population little short of 40,000,
being at that time the capital of Nupé.
Beyond Rabba it was found impossible to proceed, and it was deemed
advisable to return to the coast, to recruit and prepare for another
attempt to establish a trade in the river.
This new venture, however, ended in disaster. On the way back Lander
was shot, and was only kept alive till Fernando Po was reached. With
him ended for the time being Macgregor Laird’s enterprise. Though
carried out with splendid persistence and self-sacrifice, its results
were sadly negative, while out of the forty-nine Europeans who had been
engaged in it only nine survived the fevers.
For several years nothing more was done to turn what was only too well
named “the white man’s grave” to further account. In 1840, however,
Governor Beecroft ascended the river to within thirty miles of Bussa,
and got back without much loss of life, though adding but little to our
knowledge of the geography of the region.
Meanwhile philanthropists were as much interested in the opening up
of the Niger basin to European influence as was the commercial world.
Laird’s expedition, though having trade as its primary object, “hoped
also to aid in suppressing the slave trade, in introducing true
religion, civilisation, and humanising influences among natives whose
barbarism had hitherto been only heightened by European connection.”
These unselfish aims were further emphasised in 1841, when the
Government, still undaunted by the fatal character of the work, sent
out three steamers with the object of making treaties with the Niger
chiefs for the suppression of the slave trade. A model farm was to
be established at the confluence of the Benué and the main river,
to teach the natives better methods of agriculture, and generally
the foundations were to be laid of the great British Empire of which
M‘Queen had dreamed. Thus, in some small way, expiation was to be
made for the sins of earlier generations. Everything that science and
forethought could suggest was done to make this expedition a success,
but unhappily no way had yet been found to ward off the insidious
attacks of malaria, or counteract the effects of the fever germs once
they had gained a footing in the system. The result was death and
disaster. No higher point than Egga was reached, and that only by one
steamer. Out of one hundred and forty-five men, forty-eight died within
the two months the vessels were in the river.
The project of turning the Niger to profitable account, in the face of
such frightful mortality and deadly climatic conditions, seemed now to
be utterly hopeless. From Major Houghton downwards, death by violence,
privation, or disease had been the fate of whoever had attempted to
open it up to European influence. No other river had such a romantic
history of heroic self-sacrifice--none such a martyr roll--none such a
record of heroism and precious blood apparently uselessly thrown away.
Was it really all in vain? Was neither the European nor the native to
derive any benefit from the exploration of this silvery streak through
the beautiful West Coast Highlands, the densely populated plains of
Sego and Massina, the depopulated half desert wilderness of Songhay
and Gandu, the forest depths of Igara and Ado, and the mangrove swamps
around the Bight of Benin. Were Park, Clapperton, Lander, and all the
other explorers of the Niger basin, only to be remembered in future
ages for the heroic virtues they had shown, and not as the pioneers
of a new era of hope to the African--the founders of a great national
enterprise, bright with promise alike to Britain and to Africa?
The thought of such an ending was not to be entertained without
reluctance, yet it seemed inevitable. Savage opposition and ordinary
physical difficulties might in time be overcome, but who could fight
against the disease which lurked unseen in the fœtid depths of mangrove
forests, and filled the air with its poisonous germs? Who could avoid
the incurable blight of its deadly breath?
Already such questions had been asked, when the failure of Tuckey’s
expedition gave pause for a time to Niger exploration, till Clapperton
and Denham, attacking the region from the rear, had made the despondent
once more hopeful. Strangely enough, the recurrence of the same crisis
brought with it a similar cure.
In 1849 an expedition set forth from Tripoli, under Government auspices
this time, commanded by Richardson, and Drs. Barth and Overweg.
The frontiers of Bornu were safely reached, and here the party
divided--never to meet again. Richardson and Overweg went the way of
Toole and Oudney, and only Barth was left to carry out the objects of
the expedition. Right worthily he performed his task. Never before had
such a rich harvest of geographical, historical, ethnographical, and
philological facts been gathered in the African field of research.
From Kanem to Timbuktu, from Tripoli to Adamawa, he laid the land under
contribution. Vain would it be in the restricted space of these pages
to follow him in his wonderful travels. It may be noted, however, that
while travelling south-west from Kuka in Bornu to the Fulah province
of Adamawa, he reached on the 18th June 1851 the river Benué, at its
junction with the Faro, and 415 geographical miles in a direct line
from its confluence with the Niger. Not since leaving Europe had he
seen so large and imposing a river. Even at this distant point the
Benué, or “Mother of Waters,” is half a mile broad, and runs with a
swift current to the west. It was said to rise nine days’ journey to
the south-east, while the Faro came from a mountain seven days’ journey
distant.
Only second in importance to his discovery of the Benué so far to the
east of the Niger, was his exploration of the great bend of the Niger
itself.
Travelling from Bornu, he passed west through Sokoto and Gandu to the
Niger at Say, some distance above the point where the Gulbi-n-Gindi
from Sokoto joins the main river.
From Say he travelled in a north-easterly direction across the great
bend, among wild Tuareg tribes, and the romantic mountains of Hombori,
to Timbuktu. Thence he once more returned to the safer Haussa States
along the river banks, whereon no European eye save Park’s had ever
before rested. Here he was in the centre of the once wonderful Songhay
Empire, of which the sole relics left after the destructive blows
of Moor, Tuareg, and Fulah, were a few miserable villages, whose
inhabitants eked out a wretched existence, equally ground down by
drought and the ravages of human marauders.
One result of Barth’s discovery of the Benué so near Lake Chad was
the despatch of another expedition, to determine if possible the
navigability of the river, a point which previous attempts had failed
to settle satisfactorily.
Macgregor Laird was again the leading spirit in this new enterprise,
and anything that past experience could suggest was taken advantage of
to ensure a successful trip. Dr. Baikie, R.N., and D. J. May, R.N.,
went as surveying officers and leaders, several other gentlemen being
associated with them. This in some respects was the most successful
of the Government surveying expeditions, for it not only explored and
surveyed the Benué for a distance of 340 miles, but returned without
any special loss of life.
With this trip practically closed our Government’s participation in
the work of opening up the Niger. Thenceforth it contented itself with
sending from time to time a gunboat into the river on some punitive
mission, but no special attempts were made to further enlighten the
world as to its geography and resources. Henceforth all such work
was left to private enterprise, Government remaining aloof, disposed
neither to encourage nor discourage, but clearly satisfied that nothing
of importance could be made of a partially navigable river, flowing
through a country of seemingly no great commercial capabilities, and
with a climate which made colonisation out of the question, and even a
residence, however short, almost impossible to the average European.