Part 41 (2/2)

Notwithstanding this forcible appeal to the compatriots of Landers it was some time before a sufficiency could be collected for the erection of the monument; success, however, at last attended the exertions of the committee, and the monument was erected; and although no blazoned escutcheon is engraved upon it, nor pompous epitaph declares the virtues of the departed, yet to the ages yet unborn it will rouse the spirit of compatriot pride, when the traveller views the memorial, and with exultation he will exclaim, Richard Lander was my countryman.

In investigating the advantages which may be supposed to flow to the country by the discoveries of the Landers, we fear that they have been much over-rated, for great and almost insuperable obstacles have to be surmounted, before the savages of Africa can be brought to relinquish their usual habits, or in any manner to forego those advantages which the traffic in human flesh so bountifully presents to them. The chiefs, who rule over the uncivilized hordes, who are located on the banks of the Quorra, are all engaged in a kind of commercial relation with the Europeans, by whom it is found necessary to conciliate them, by sometimes, the most obsequious conduct, degrading to a man of civilization, when shown towards an ignorant, tyrannical, and despotic tyrant. Any attempt to force a channel of commerce, beyond the territories of these savage chiefs, without having first, either by presents or other means, obtained their co-operation, is too visionary a scheme for even the most enterprising adventurer to dare to undertake. King Jacket and King Boy, with the king of Eboe, may be said to be in the command of the estuary of the Niger, and, therefore, any attempt to establish a channel of commerce without allowing them to partic.i.p.ate in the profits, or to be permitted to exact a duty on all goods pa.s.sing by water through their territory, must necessarily prove abortive. The jealousy of their character would be aroused, they would see in the traffic of the European a gradual decline of their own emoluments, and by degrees a total exclusion from those branches of commerce, from which they had hitherto derived the greatest profit. That the commerce of the interior of Africa offers the most tempting advantages to the enterprising British merchant cannot be doubted, for the two articles alone of indigo and ivory would repay the speculator with a profit of nearly 1000 per cent. This circ.u.mstance was sufficient to arouse the commercial spirit of the merchants of Glasgow, who, on the return of the Landers with the information of the discovery of the termination of the Niger, proceeded immediately to form a company, having a capital of 10,000, for establis.h.i.+ng a commercial intercourse with the chiefs of the interior of Africa, forgetting at the time, that before they could reach the territories of those chiefs, they had in the persons of King Boy, King Jacket, and King Forday, and the king of the Eboe country, a gauntlet to run through, and a kind of quadruple alliance to extinguish, without which all their efforts would be in vain. The death of Lander put an end to this speculation, as it was then clearly seen that unless the actual const.i.tution of the countries situate on the banks of the Quorra, could be placed under a different authority, and the people brought to a state of positive submission, it were futile to expect any solid or permanent advantages from any commercial relations they might form. The insalubrity of the climate, so very injurious to a European const.i.tution, was also a great drawback to the prosecution of those commercial advantages, which the discovery of the termination of the Niger offered to this country; it was literally sending men to die a premature death to embark them on board of an African trader, and we have the authority of the late Captain Fullerton for stating, that he scarcely ever knew an individual who, although he might escape the pestilential fevers of the country for the second, and even the third or fourth time, that did not eventually die. Notwithstanding, however, the latter serious drawback to the prosecution of our geographical knowledge of the interior of Africa, there are yet to be found amongst us some hardy, gallant spirits, who, fearless of every danger, and willing to undergo every privation which the human const.i.tution can endure, are still anxious to expose themselves to such appalling perils, for the promotion of science and the general welfare of the human race. Amongst those individuals, a young gentleman of the name of Coulthurst has rendered himself conspicuous. He was the only surviving son of C. Coulthurst, Esquire, of Sandirvay, near Norwich, and was thirty-five years of age at the time of his death. He was educated at Eton, studied afterwards at Brazen Nose College, Oxford, and then went to Barbadoes, but from his infancy his heart was set on African enterprise. His family are still in possession of some of his Eton school books, in which maps of Africa, with his supposed travels into the interior, are delineated; and at Barbadoes he used to take long walks in the heat of the day, in order to season himself for the further exposure, which he never ceased to contemplate. His eager desires also took a poetical form, and a soliloquy of Mungo Park, and other pieces of a similar description, of considerable merit, were written by him at different times. The stimulus that at length decided him, however, was the success of the Landers. He feared that if he delayed longer, another expedition would be fitted out on a grand scale, and leave nothing which an individual could attempt.

It was in December 1831, that Messrs. Coulthurst and Tyrwhitt were introduced to the council of the Geographical Society, as being about to proceed at their own expense to the mouth of the Quorra, with the view of endeavouring to penetrate thence eastward to the Bahr-Abiad; and although their preparations were not on such a scale as to warrant any very sanguine hopes of success, yet it was felt to be a duty on the part of the society to patronize so spirited an undertaking. They were accordingly placed in communication with Colonel Leake, and other members of the late African a.s.sociation, whose advice it was thought could not fail to be of service to them.

They were also introduced to Captain Owen and to Mr. Lander, the value of whose experience in planning their operations was obvious.

And the expedition being brought under the notice of his majesty's government, the loan of a chronometer was obtained for it, with strong letters of introduction and recommendation to the officers commanding the naval and military forces of the crown along the African coast.

The party sailed from the Downs on the 1st January 1832, and arrived at Bathurst St. Mary's on the Gambia on the 28th of the same month.

Both travellers were somewhat indisposed during the voyage, and the sun after their arrival so seriously affected Mr. Tyrwhitt, that he here yielded to the repeated representations of his companion and others, and returned home. The following is an extract of a letter received from Mr. Coulthurst, dated Bathurst, 1st February 1832, and the style is clearly indicative of the superior qualifications of his mind:

”After a conference and palaver with some of the native chiefs, amongst whose grotesque forms and equipments you would have laughed to have seen me perched this morning, sipping palm wine; I have made up my mind to take the southern bank of this river, through Fooladoo to Sego. A messenger from the Almana of Bondou, who has undertaken to bring the gum trade here from the Senegal, is now at Bathurst, and the merchants are willing to a.s.sist in making up a coffila, which will enable us I trust to prosecute our journey in safety. Though I shall not thus reach the main object of Funda so directly as if I had had the good fortune to overtake the Pluto, it would be scarcely possible for me to do this now before the rainy season; and though I shall be a few weeks later in reaching my destination, I shall have the satisfaction of tracing the _whole_ river, and giving the position of all the remarkable places, which neither Caillie nor Lander were able to do. There is now no earthly chance of the observations made by Park seeing the light, for Mr. Ainslie showed me yesterday his last letter from Sansanding, which I perused with much interest. You are aware that nothing but the unfortunate occurrence of the Fellatas' conquests with the period of his expedition, and his being mistaken for one of their parties, occasioned its unhappy result; and by striking across the mountains, which we shall do at Baranco, about four hundred miles up, we shall have only twenty-four days' land journey to the mighty Niger, where he has scarcely command of water enough to float a canoe.

”The climate here is so very superior to that in the Bights of Benin and Biafra, that after Barbadoes, where shade is unknown, it really seems comparatively cold; I took a stroll of half a dozen miles to-day before breakfast, which I could not have done, without feeling languid afterwards, in the West Indies, but Tyrwhitt never could have borne the breathing oven of the Gold Coast. Everything reminds me here of the near neighbourhood of the desert; the toke and turban very general, every man, not a Christian, a Musselman, and what seems strange to European eyes, persons in the coa.r.s.est checks with gold ornaments to the value of hundreds of dollars.

”The beautiful harnessed antelope, which it is really a sin to shoot, is common in the bush, and milk, honey, and rice, are to be had in most of the negro villages, this being quite the dairy country of Africa. But then there are mosquitoes, that madden the best-tempered folk, and holy men with their eyes on the Koran, ready to dirk you for the slightest subject of difference, and it is curious to see the strangest characters of this sort well received and admitted to a familiarity at government house, because they have much interest in the country, and it is politic just now to speak them fair.”

Having concluded his arrangements for proceeding through the Enyong and Eboe countries, he intended to proceed up the Calebar River, and thence over land to Funda. He arrived without any particular accident in the Eboe country, but the king of that people refused to let him pa.s.s, and he was, therefore, obliged to return to Calebar, and thence it was his intention to take a pa.s.sage on board the Agnes for Fernando Po. The refusal of the king of the Eboe country, did not proceed from any distrust or jealousy on his part, but a most sanguinary war was raging in the interior, and he, therefore, considered the life of the traveller to be in danger. He had not been exposed to any very severe fatigue, but his disappointment was great, and he laboured under considerable debility and depression of spirits. He died without much suffering on the second day after embarking on board the Agnes.

Thus perished another victim in the cause of African discovery, but still there are hearts to be found, who are willing in the cause of science to brave every peril, for the purpose of enlarging our knowledge of the interior of the African continent, and opening fresh sources to the skill and industry of our merchants. The Rev. Mr. Wolf is now on his journey to Timbuctoo, and Lieutenant Wilkinson is following up the discoveries of Lander; of them we may say with the poet:--

”Fortuna audaces juvat.”

FINIS.

<script>