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Updated: May 26, 2025
Avoiding Avawa, at which place the widow Zuma had laid siege to the hearts of Clapperton and his attendant, they proceeded on to Boussa, which, greatly to their surprise, they found standing on the mainland, and not on an island as Clapperton's journal had stated.
Here they found boats lying ready for them, with a message from the Sultan of Youri, requesting a visit, and promising, if they consented, to deliver up some books and papers of Mungo Park, which he said he had in his possession. Clapperton's arrangements, however, prevented him from paying this visit.
Clapperton's remonstrances against this unfair treatment were vain; grief preyed upon his ardent spirit, and though the sultan, some time afterwards began to treat him more favourably, this returning kindness came too late. He was attacked with dysentery, brought on by a cold, caught by lying down under a tree on soft and wet ground, when fatigued and heated with walking.
We are therefore more disposed to award the merit where it is most particularly due, for although in accordance with the received notion, that whatever was accomplished in the second expedition, is to be attributed to Clapperton, yet, from our private resources, we are enabled not only to supply many deficiencies in the published accounts of Clapperton's second expedition, gathered from the oral communication of Lander himself, but also to give a description of many interesting scenes, which throw a distinct light upon the character of the natives, their progress towards civilisation, and the extent of their commercial relations.
They were, at first, in hopes of obtaining Park's journals; but only an old nautical almanack was seen, and they afterwards discovered that the journals themselves, though kept for some years, had, after Clapperton's death, been destroyed by the person into whose hands they had fallen.
Mungo Park's drowning agony in the African river he had discovered, but which he was not to live to describe; Clapperton's perishing of fever on the banks of the great lake, in the heart of the same continent, which was afterwards to be rediscovered and described by other explorers; Franklin's perishing in the snow it might be after he had solved the long-sought problem of the North-west Passage are among the most melancholy events in the history of enterprise and genius.
He not only made his way among the various tribes he had to pass through, but carried with him in safety a large trunk, containing Clapperton's clothes and other property, three watches, which he had secured about his person to preserve them from the rapacity of Bello, and all his master's papers and journals, with which, after a journey of nine months, accompanied by three blacks, he arrived in safety at Badagarry.
On this the sultan made a gesture of dismissal, and Clapperton retired. This was not, however, the last attempt of a similar kind, and things grew much worse later. A few days afterwards another messenger was sent to demand the presents reserved for El Khanemy, and on Clapperton's refusing to give them up, they were taken from him.
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