Part 33 (1/2)

The Landers were now weary of their protracted stay at Boossa, and urged the king to hasten their departure, and after many scruples and much hesitation, he at length appointed the second day of the moon, that being, according to his opinion, the happiest and luckiest of all days. He could not, however, forbear expressing his deep regret at their determination to leave Boossa before the return of his messenger from Nouffie, as it might be detrimental to their own personal interests, and his own reputation also might suffer, if any thing should befal them on the river, but he had already given his word for their departure, and from that promise he would not swerve.

On the same afternoon they wished to pay their respects to the king, previously to their departure, which they understood was to take place on the following morning; but to their surprise, he a.s.serted that the moon would not be discernible that evening, and, therefore, that the following Monday would be the day of their departure. The moon, however, _did_ s.h.i.+ne fairly in sight of all the people; nevertheless, they made no further remark to the prince on the subject, thinking it might confuse and irritate him.

Every thing was now got ready for starting. As it was not their intention to call at many inhabited places on the banks of the Niger, they provided themselves with a great quant.i.ty of provisions, which consisted chiefly of three large bags of corn, and one of beans.

They had likewise a couple of fowls and two sheep, so that they were of opinion, they should have food enough for all hands for three weeks or a month at least. To add to their stock, the king and midiki between them, gave them a considerable quant.i.ty of rice, honey, corn, and onions, and two large pots of vegetable b.u.t.ter, weighing not less than a hundred pounds.

To their now unspeakable joy, the long expected and wished for messenger arrived from Rabba, accompanied by two messengers from the king of Nouffie, who were to be their guides as far as Rabba, after pa.s.sing which city, all the Nouffie territory to the southward, was under the government of Ederesa and his partisans. ”The magia,” said the Boossa amba.s.sador, ”was delighted with the intelligence, that white men were to honour his dominions with their presence, and as a proof of his friendly disposition towards you, and his interest in your welfare, he has not only sent his son as your companion and guide, but he has likewise despatched a messenger to every town on the banks of the Niger, either considerable or unimportant, even as far as Funda, which is beyond the limits of the empire, and he is commissioned to acquaint their inhabitants of the fact of your intention of proceeding down the river, and to desire them to a.s.sist you with their encouragement and support, as far as it lies in their power to do.”

After some little consideration, the Landers knew not whether they ought to feel pleasure or regret, thankfulness or indifference, at the arrival of these men, and the occasion which brought them thither; at the time, they could only foresee that they would be a heavy burden on their funds, and as it happened, that they had the utmost difficulty in the world to support themselves, it would cause them additional trouble, expense, and uneasiness, to provide them with the bare necessaries of life. The king, however, had but one feeling on the subject, and that was unbounded delight; he capered round his hut with transport, when he saw their guides, and heard the message which they had to deliver, and after a burst of joy, he began to cry like a child, his heart was so full. ”Now,” said he, when he had become more composed, ”whatever may happen to the white men, my neighbours cannot but acknowledge that I have taken every care of them, treated them as became a king, and done my best to promote their happiness and interests. They will not be able,”

continued the monarch with exultation, ”they dare not have the effrontery to cast at me a reproach, like that which they bestowed on my ancestor; I can now safely entrust the white men to the care, protection, and hospitality of a neighbouring monarch, who, I am convinced, if not for my sake, at least for his own, will receive and entertain them with every mark of distinction and kindness, and feel that towards them I have done my duty, and let my neighbours see to it, that they do theirs.”

On Monday, the 20th September, all were on the _qui vine_ at a very early hour, ransacking their lumber, packing it up, and turning it out into the yard, whence it was conveyed to the water side. About breakfast time, the king and queen arrived at their hut, to pay them a farewell visit, and bestow upon them their last blessing. They brought with them two pots of honey, and a large quant.i.ty of goora nuts, strongly recommending them to present the latter to the Rabba chieftain, for that nothing which they might have in their possession, could so effectually conciliate his favour, procure them his friends.h.i.+p, and command his confidence.

It was nine o'clock in the morning when they arrived at the river side, where they found two canoes lying to receive their goods, which were quickly loaded. They had, however, been but a short time on the water, when they discovered that the smaller canoe, in which were six individuals and a number of sheep belonging to the Nouffie messengers, was over-laden, and in danger of sinking, and that both were very leaky, insomuch that it required three men to be constantly employed in baling out the water to keep them afloat. To lighten the smaller canoe, they took a man from her into their own, and afterwards they proceeded more safely, and with less apprehension, yet they were obliged to put into a small island, called Malalie, to get it repaired, for they were afraid to proceed any further with the small canoe, on account of the rocks, and the velocity of the current.

According to their estimation, the current was here running at the rate of five or six miles in an hour, and the bed of the river was full of rocks, some of which were only a few inches below the surface of the water, which occasioned it to make a loud rus.h.i.+ng noise, and forewarn the canoe man of his danger. They now pa.s.sed the boundaries of Boossa, on the eastern side of the river, and entered the dominions of the king of Nouffie. Towards evening they came to Inguazhilligee, having pa.s.sed just before, a very large and pleasant, but straggling town, called Congie. Inguazhilligee is the first town on the Wowow ground, all above, on the western bank of the Niger, belonging to Boossa. Journeying along for a quarter of an hour without stopping at any place, they put into a market town, on a large and beautiful island, called Patas.h.i.+e, just in time to save themselves from a heavy shower. Here they were obliged to remain until the return of the messenger, whom they landed in the middle of the day, and sent to Wowow, for the purpose of informing the king of their departure from Boossa, and their intention to reside at Patas.h.i.+e till it might please him to send the large canoe, which they had purchased of him. They were now out of the protection of the friendly monarch of Boossa, who would have nothing further to do with them.

Patas.h.i.+e is a large, rich island, unspeakably beautiful, and is embellished with various groves of palm and other n.o.ble trees. It is tributary to Wowow, though it is inhabited solely by Nouffie people, who are considered honest, active, laborious, and wealthy. The hut in which they resided, exhibited a scene of revelry and mirth more becoming a native inn than a private dwelling.

The chief of the island, accompanied by the four messengers from Boossa and Nouffie, and several of his own people, all dressed ”in their holiday best,” paid them a visit in the earlier part of the morning, and out of compliment, it was supposed, remained with them till the evening, with the exception of a short absence in the middle of the day, during all which time they were employed in swallowing palm wine, which is procured in the island in great plenty, and in telling nonsensical stories. The Landers were heartily glad when they said it was time to depart, and having shaken hands with the ardour of drunkards, they took their leave, staggered out of the hut, and all went laughing away.

They were about to close their hut for the night, when a messenger arrived from the king of Wowow, with news not at all to their liking.

He informed them that they were anxiously expected in that city from Boossa at the time of the holidays, and because they did not come agreeably to their promise, the prince could not conceal his chagrin, and was exceedingly angry, not only with the king of Boossa, who was the cause of their absence, but also with themselves. The messenger informed them that his sovereign had most certainly procured for them a canoe, which was laid up at Lever, but that if they wished, or rather if they were determined to have their horses back again, the king would send them in compliance to their wishes, ”for who,” said he, with much emphasis, ”would presume to a.s.sert that the monarch of Wowow would keep the property of others? It would not be paying him that respect,” he continued, which his rank and situation demanded, were the white men to leave his dominions and the country altogether, without first coming to pay him their respects, and he would therefore entreat them to pay a visit to Wowow for that purpose, or if both of them could not leave Patas.h.i.+e, he requested that Richard Lander would come and bid him adieu, because he had not done so when his illness compelled him to leave his city.

The monarchs of Boossa and Wowow seemed to entertain very different opinions regarding the journey of the Landers. The former insisting on the necessity of their proceeding down the Niger on the eastern or Nouffie side, and the latter making use of strong language to persuade them that the Yarriba side of the river would be the most convenient, the most agreeable, and the safest; and if they would make up their minds not to attend to the king of Boossa's advice, he would send a messenger with them, who should protect them even to the sea. This difference of opinion, they were apprehensive would involve them in a thousand perplexities, yet they could only be guided by circ.u.mstances.

At Boossa, they experienced the greatest difficulty and trouble in procuring the bare necessaries of life, but in the flouris.h.i.+ng Patas.h.i.+e, provisions were sent to them from the chiefs of the two islands in such abundance, that half of them were thrown to the dogs.

The natives of all ages displayed the greatest anxiety to see the white men, and large crowds a.s.sembled every day, and waited from morning to night patiently till they had gained the object of their visit. However, they were all as timid as hares, and if the Landers happened to look fixedly in their faces for a moment, most of them, more especially the females and the junior cla.s.ses of both s.e.xes, started back with terror, as if they had seen a serpent in the gra.s.s; and when the Landers attempted to walk near any of them, they ran screaming away, as though they had been pursued by a lion, or were in danger of falling into the jaws of a crocodile, so horrified were these poor people at the bare sight of a white man, and so frightful did their imaginations picture him to be.

On Friday, September 24th, Richard Lander landed for the purpose of proceeding to Wowow, and took possession of a house on the banks of the river, which had been prepared for him. The king of Wowow's messenger accompanied him, and having got everything ready as soon as he could, he commenced his journey to the city.

On his arrival at Wowow, he was too much fatigued to pay his respects to the sovereign, but on the following day, he had prepared himself for the visit to the king's house, but to his great surprise the eccentric old man excused himself from being seen on that day, on the plea that he had taken a ride in the morning to see his gardens, and the exercise had so much tired him, that he felt no inclination whatever to receive his visitors till the following day. It was, therefore, not until the 26th, that he granted Lander an audience, and he then said with the greatest indifference, ”I have not yet been able to procure you the canoe which I promised to get, but I have no doubt that the ruler of Patas.h.i.+e will have it in his power to supply you with one to your satisfaction, for which purpose I will send an express to that island without delay, whom I will furnish with the necessary instructions to effect an immediate purchase.”

Finding that nothing definitive could be arranged relative to the canoe, Lander prepared to take his departure, but previously to his setting out, he requested the monarch to show him his collection of charms, which were written on sheets of paper, glued or pasted together. Amongst them he discovered a small edition of Watts' Hymns on one of the blank leaves of which was written, _Alexander Anderson, Royal Military Hospital, Gosport_, 1804. From the Wowow chieftain, as well as from his good old brother, and their quondam Abba, Richard and his attendants received the most liberal hospitality, and on his taking his leave of them, they wished him farewell in the most cordial and affectionate manner.

On the return of Richard Lander to Patas.h.i.+e, preparations were instantly made for their departure, but after all their luggage had been packed up in readiness, information was brought them from the chief, that they could not start until to-morrow, because the Niger would receive a great influx of water during the night, which would be considerably in their favour. To raise any objection to this arrangement was considered as wholly useless, and therefore they quietly awaited the coming of the following day.

Between eight and nine in the morning, horses were brought from the chief and his nephew to take the Landers to the water side, where their luggage had been previously conveyed. Here they had to wait a considerable time till the canoes were brought from another part of the island, there being but one got ready at the time of their arrival. On the arrival of the canoes, and all their things had been removed into them from the beach, they were desired to ride to a landing place further down the island, because of the rocks, which were reported to intercept the stream at a little distance from the place whereon they stood, and to be very dangerous for canoes that were heavily laden. The venerable governor of Patas.h.i.+e, to whom they were under so many obligations, preceded them on the footpath, walking with a staff, and they reached the appointed place of embarkation exactly at the same moment as the canoes. After thanking all the friends that had accompanied them, they jumped on board, and pushed off from the sh.o.r.e, cheered by the natives that were present.

The current bore them rapidly along, and having pa.s.sed down in front of one or two towns on the banks of the river, they came in sight of Lever, which was the place of their destination, it being about twenty miles from Patas.h.i.+e.

Their surprise was, however, great indeed, when instead of the proper person whom they expected would have received them, they were welcomed on sh.o.r.e by a man called Ducoo, who represented himself as the agent and confidential friend of the prince of Rabba, but their surprise was not a little increased on learning that a party of forty or fifty armed Fellata soldiers were also in the town. Ducoo treated them with the courtly politeness of a Frenchman, and was equally lavish in his compliments and offers of service; he walked with them to the chief of the town, to whom he took the liberty of introducing them, almost before he knew himself who or what they were; went himself and procured excellent lodgings for them, returned and sat down in their company to tell them some droll stories, and impart to them in confidence some very disagreeable news; then hastily arose, went out, and came back again with a sheep and other provisions, which he had obtained by compulsion from the chief, and finally remained with them till long after the moon had risen, when he left them to their repose.

The Landers now began to discover that they had been egregiously imposed upon, for in the first place they found, after all, that Lever did not belong to the king of Wowow, though it stands on his dominions, nor had that monarch a single subject here, or a single canoe, so that they were as far as ever they were from getting one, and with the loss of their horses to boot. They now found to their cost that they had been cajoled and out-manoeuvred by those fellows of Boossa and its adjoining state, whom they falsely conceived to be their dearest and best black friends. They had played with them as if they were great dolls; they had been driven about like shuttlec.o.c.ks; they had been to them first a gazing stock, and afterwards were their laughing stock, and, perhaps, not unlikely their mockery; they had been their admiration, their buffoons, their wonder and their scorn, a by-word and a jest. Else why this double dealing, this deceit, this chicanery, these hollow professions? ”Why,” as Richard Lander says, ”did they entrap us in this manner? Why have they led us about as though we had been blind, only to place us in the very lap of what they imagine to be danger? For can it be possible that the monarchs of Wowow and Boossa were ignorant of the state of things here, which is in their own immediate neighbourhood, and which have continued the same essentially for these three years? Surely,” concludes Lander, ”they have knowingly deceived us.”

The Landers were now placed in a most unpleasant predicament; they could not possibly obtain a canoe according to the promise of the king of Wowow, and to take those which had been lent them by the chief of Patas.h.i.+e, appeared such a breach of confidence, that they could not prevail upon themselves to commit it, but the necessity of the case pleaded strongly in their favour. They had not the means of purchasing the canoes of the chief of Patas.h.i.+e, as the king of Wowow had adroitly managed to exhaust them of nearly all their resources; but when they began to talk of prosecuting their journey in the canoes belonging to the chief of Patas.h.i.+e, the canoe men stoutly resisted their right: fortunately, however, for them, their busy, restless friend Ducoo interfered on their behalf, and soon silenced their remarks, by threatening to cut off the head of him who should presume from that time to set foot in either of the canoes; and in order to give his menace the greater weight, he stationed two of his men to guard the forbidden boats till the sun went down, with drawn swords, and during the greater part of the night, another of his men paraded up and down the banks of the river near the spot as a watch, and this man kept up a noise by continually playing on a drum.

The four messengers, who had accompanied them from Wowow and Boossa, had hitherto been a great enc.u.mbrance upon the Landers, as their maintenance was by no means inconsiderable, at the same time, they were themselves in some measure dependent upon the native chiefs for their support. They were, therefore, heartily rejoiced to get rid of them, and having been paid their stipulated wages, they left the town in company to proceed to Wowow.

The question of the canoes was, however, by no means settled, for the Landers were on a sudden surprised by the arrival of a small party of men, who arrived in a canoe, from the chief of the island of Teah, with a message to them, purporting that the canoes which they had, to the infinite surprise of the chief, detained at Lever, did not belong as was supposed, to his friend, the chief of Patas.h.i.+e, but were his own property, and as he did not acknowledge the authority of Wowow, but had ever been subject to the king of Nouffie, he considered that they could have no right whatever to the canoes in question, and, therefore, he entreated them to return the canoes by the hands of his messengers. The chief of Teah a.s.serted, that he had lent them, because he was willing to oblige the white men and his own neighbour, but he did not conceive it possible that they could make so ungrateful and unkind a return for his hospitality, and the respect and attention which it had been his pride and pleasure to show them.

For their own parts, they could not forbear acknowledging the truth and justice of the observations of the Teah chieftain, and blaming themselves for the step they had taken. They said further, that whatever might be the consequence, they had not the slightest objection to restore the canoes to their rightful owner; and provided the men from Teah could obtain the consent of Ducoo, the priest, to take them away, they were at liberty to do so whenever they might think proper. But this, they were by no means disposed to do, for they both feared and hated Ducoo, and, therefore, they bribed the Nouffie messenger with a large sum of money to a.s.sist them in their project, and purposed taking away both canoes in the night time by stealth. These intentions were, however, frustrated by the watchful vigilence of Ducoo, who had mistrusted them long before they were made known to the Landers, and when he had actually detected their plans, he ordered the canoes to be pulled up on sh.o.r.e, two hundred yards at least from the water's edge, and observed with vehemence, ”That after what he had done, should they again be launched into the water and taken away, he would instantly tie a rope round the necks of the chief of the town, and the Nouffie messenger that had accepted the bribe, and in that humiliating state, they should be driven like beasts to their sovereign, the magia.”