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He seized Clapperton's baggage, under the pretence that he was conveying arms and warlike stores to the sultan of Bornou, and ordered Lord Bathurst's letter to that prince to be given up to him.
He also by false pretences induced Lander to come on to Sackatoo with the presents, including several firearms which were intended for the King of Bornou, that he might get them into his own possession. This news preyed greatly on Clapperton's mind, besides which he caught a dangerous chill from lying down while hunting, when overcome with heat and fatigue, on a damp spot in the open air.
The denouement of an English court-ship is frequently distinguished by an elopement; but although it was the last of Clapperton's thoughts to run away with such an unwieldy mass of human flesh, yet she very delicately proposed to him, that she would send for a malem, or man of learning, who should read the fetah to them, or, in other words, that no time whatever should be lost in endowing the widow Zuma with all claim, right, title, and privilege to be introduced at the court of Wawa, or any other court in Africa, or even at that time at the virtuous and formal court of queen Charlotte of England, as the spouse of Captain Clapperton, of the royal navy of Great Britain.
A Portuguese named Songa, and Colombus, Denham's servant, accompanied him as far as Dahomey. Seventeen days after he left that town, Dickson reached Char, and a little later Yaourie, beyond which place he was never traced. See Clapperton's "Last Journey in Africa."
The unhappy issue of Clapperton's last attempt chilled for a time the zeal for African discovery; but that high spirit of adventure which animates Britons was soon found acting powerfully in a quarter, where there was least reason to expect it.
Dickson landed at Whidah, for reasons which do not appear in the narrative of Clapperton's expedition, but which have been fully stated to us by Lander, to whom we are indebted for the information which we now lay before our readers of the kingdom of Dahomy, its natives, customs, natural productions, and commercial advantages. Mr.
Wherever he went inquiries were made about his father, as he was supposed to be Clapperton's son, and every one expressed great grief at hearing of his death. The intelligence, courage, and resolution he exhibited, proved Lander to be no ordinary person.
As to the German, Heinrich Earth, my knowledge of him is of the slightest, and I plead guilty to complete ignorance about Denham and Clapperton's exploits, though their names seem more suggestive of a firm of respectable family solicitors or of a small railway station on a branch line, than of two distinguished travellers.
Clapperton's ague had not left him, and Hillman had been twice attacked so violently, as to be given over by the doctor. They all, however, looked forward anxiously to proceeding on their journey, and fancied that change of scene and warmer weather, would bring them all round.
Went to Chiefswood at one, and marked with regret forty trees indispensably necessary for paling much like drawing a tooth; they are wanted and will never be better, but I am avaricious of grown trees, having so few. Worked a fair task; dined, and read Clapperton's journey and Denham's into Bornou. Very entertaining, and less botheration about mineralogy, botany, and so forth, than usual.
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