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Updated: May 20, 2025
With respect to themselves, they found it necessary, in conformity to the orders of the fetish, to walk to a neighbouring village, and there to spend the night. Their course to Wow, through this creek, was north-by-east; and Badagry, by the route they came, was about thirty miles distant.
Preceded by a steamer, they dashed across the bar, and then anchored inside, out of reach of shot from the town, to commence operations the next morning. Soon after sunrise men were seen assembling on the banks of the river, and, on pulling over to them, they found that Mr Beecroft, with the ex-king, Akitoye, had arrived, bringing with him 500 men from Abeokuta and Badagry.
In 1825 Clapperton made his second expedition to the interior, accompanied by Richard Lander. In this journey the adventurous travellers landed at Badagry, and crossed through Yarriba to the Niger. On their way they spent several days at Katunga, the capital of Yarriba, a city so extensive that one of its streets is described as five miles in length.
Dahomy, Alladah, Maha, and Badagry were claimed as tributaries; and the king of Benin was referred to as an ally. The government is an hereditary despotism, every subject being the slave of the king; but its administration appears to have been for a long period mild and humane.
Badagry is not the only kingdom in which, if a present be made to the king, the sole return that is received for it, is the honour of having been allowed to offer it, and this experience was acquired by our travellers, for the king certainly accepted the presents, but without the slightest demonstration of pleasure or satisfaction; the king scarcely deigned to look at the presents, and they were carried away by the attendants, with real or seeming indifference.
They modestly demanded 100 lbs. of beads, fifty kegs of powder, forty demijohns of rum, twelve uniforms, ten burnuses, a few swords, and 200 whole pieces of various expensive cloths, such as Costa Finas, Riscados, and satin stripes, briefly, about L300 for three days' march. It suggested the modest demand made by King Adooley of Badagry, from the brothers Lander.
Richard therefore returned to his dwelling, fully satisfied with himself, but by no means having satisfied the ladies of Badagry, that an European was a man of love or gallantry. At nine o'clock on the morning of the 23rd March, agreeably to the promise which they had made on the preceding day, they visited the chief at his residence, which was somewhat more than half a mile from their own.
If Richard Lander had been in the least inclined to a risible disposition, perhaps no occasion was more likely to call it into action, than when he saw himself followed by two or three hundred savages, under an imputation of possessing the power of curing an individual, who had been stabbed nearly to the heart, when at the same time, he knew as much of the art of stopping an haemorrhage, as he did of the art of delivering one of the queens of Badagry of an heir to "the golden stool."
On the arrival of the Landers at Badagry, Adooley was but just recovering from the effects of these various mortifications and other disasters; and singular enough, he had the artfulness, as has been previously noticed, of laying the whole blame of them to his having permitted the last African mission to pass through his territories, contrary to the wishes of his neighbours, and those, who were interested in the matter.
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