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Updated: May 27, 2025
Upon this terrible prospect I renewed my motion of turning northward, and making towards the river Niger or Rio Grande, then to turn west towards the English settlements on the Gold Coast; to which every one most readily consented, only our gunner, who was indeed our best guide, though he happened to be mistaken at this time.
The boys therefore were not "bound" by their covenant to procure these varieties; but for all that, they were gratified at going beyond the strict letter of their agreement, which good luck enabled them to do; for while scouring the country in search of the ursus niger, they chanced upon another brown bear, a female, with three cubs, one of which was brown, like the mother; the second had the white ring round its neck, and the third was as grey as a little badger!
Of thirty-four soldiers and four carpenters, who left the Gambia, only six soldiers and one carpenter reached the Niger. During the night the wolves carried away two large cloth bundles from the tent door to a considerable distance; where they eat off the skins with which they were covered, and left them. August 20th Received a bullock from the Dooty as a present.
Park fixed upon thirty-five, who seemed the strongest men of the garrison, to accompany him; and one of their officers, Lieutenant Martyn, also volunteered. Two experienced seamen, by permission of Captain Shortland of the Squirrel frigate, were also to go with him, as their assistance would prove most useful in equipping' the boats for sailing down the Niger.
To a religious scrupulousness, which is alarmed at a drop of medicine that is prohibited falling upon their clothes, they add the most enterprising and determined spirit of commercial enterprise, plunging into The Desert, often in companies of only two or three, when infested with bandits and cut-throats, their journies the meanwhile extending from the shores of the Mediterranean to the banks of the Niger, as low down to the Western Coast as Noufee and Rabbah.
But the men had stopped only to cover their mouths and faces with cloths to ward off the stifling stench which at the edge of the "Putrid Pits" was simply unendurable; then they raised the biers with coffins and moved on. Only one coffin stopped before the temple. Vinicius sprang toward it, and after him Petronius, Niger, and two British slaves with the litter.
They are principally founded on a consideration of the vast magnitude which the Niger must have attained after a course of more than 1600 geographical miles, and the difficulty of conceiving so prodigious a stream to be discharged into lakes, and evaporated even by an African sun.
Meantime, Isaaco was sent forward to Sego, to ask permission to pass through the king's territories, and to build a boat for sailing down the Niger. Some days elapsed before any answer was received; a report was even current, that the king had with his own hand killed Isaaco, and had avowed his resolution that every white man who should come within his reach should share the same fate.
By the Niger is here undoubtedly meant the river of Senegal, which in the Mandingo language is Bafing, or the Black River. To what extent these people are now spread over the African continent it is difficult to ascertain. They are a subtle and treacherous race of people, and take every opportunity of cheating and plundering the credulous and unsuspecting negroes.
A French gentleman relates a remarkable anecdote about a combat which he saw on the banks of the Niger, between a Moorish chief and a lion. The prince took the Frenchman and his company to a place adjoining a large wood which was much infested with wild beasts, and directed them all to climb the trees. They did so.
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