A biographical memoir of the late Dr. Walter Oudney, Captain Hugh Clapperton, both of the Royal Navy, and Major Alex. Gordon Laing, all of whom died amid their active and enterprising endeavours to explore the interior of Africa

by Thomas Nelson

Sect. VIII.—HIS FIRST EXPEDITION TO AFRICA.

By this time our hero had become acquainted with Dr. Oudney, at whose house we have had the pleasure of occasionally meeting him; and when the Doctor was appointed to his exploratory expedition to Africa, he expressed, through the medium of the common friend of both, and to whose information we have been much indebted in drawing up our memoir of their lives, his desire to be attached to the mission. Clapperton could not boast the possession of much either of the literary or the scientific knowledge requisite to constitute the intelligent traveller; but he was distinguished for other qualities fitted to render him a valuable acquisition to any mission similar to that to the accomplishment of which Dr. Oudney had been appointed. The portrait prefixed to the “Journal of his second Expedition,” shows that his figure was tall, strong, and manly. He had a fine bust, and his whole frame combined length of arm, great strength, weight, and agility—circumstances which the portrait does not sufficiently represent, and is also deficient in expressing his fine lion-like forehead and eye. We have seen that he was endowed with a constitution of almost invincible strength, that he possessed a most enterprising disposition of mind, great conscientiousness in the discharge of duty, and a heart alive to the kindly impressions of compassion, and capable of strong and steady friendship. Such a travelling companion was likely to be a treasure to a man like Dr. Oudney; and he had the pleasure to be informed that his application to have Clapperton attached to the mission was granted.

Accordingly, in the autumn of 1821, the travellers left Scotland for London, with the view of then commencing their expedition to the interior of Africa. In a letter to a friend dated London, September 1, 1821, Clapperton says, he had been supplied with arms, and had got instruments of his own choosing, and mentions the sextant as the most complete he had ever seen; he states to his friend that he had had several agreeable interviews with his uncle; and adds, that he was just on the eve of setting off for Falmouth. His next letter to the same gentleman was written at Mourzuk, May 20, 1822, in which he tells his friend that his health had continued vigorous, although the heat was 106 degrees of Fahrenheit, in the shade; and says, that Oudney was much admired by the ladies for the blackness of his beard, and himself for the strength of his mustachoes. Oudney in a postscript on the same sheet, says, “Clapperton is just the old man. He is a strange-looking figure with his long sandy coloured beard and mustachoes. You would smile were you to see him smoking his pipe, and calling to his servant, Waddy ama simpri, or fill my pipe.” In a subsequent letter from the same place, to the same correspondent, Clapperton speaks in praise of the Tuaricks, whom by this time, (Sept. 1822) he had visited. He says they are a fine warlike race, who fear nothing but the devil and his agents, that they offered to convey both him and Oudney to Timbuctoo; and adds, “They wished me much to take a wife amongst them, but I said she would have to go to Bournou and England with me, which got me out of the scrape with a good grace, as their women never leave their country, and those who marry them must stay with them.” And the fact is that our hero very soon found himself as much at home among the wild Tauricks, who traverse the sandy deserts of Sahaara, as he had formerly done among the Indians who dwell in the midst of the forests of Canada.

It would seem that Clapperton did not regard it as any part of his duty to keep a separate journal while Oudney lived; nor was it necessary, as they were generally together in all the excursions which they made in Fezzan, and their joint observations were combined by the Doctor into the same narrative, to which he put his own name. But the case was greatly altered after the arrival of the travellers in Bournou, where Oudney was seized with the illness which terminated in death, upon the 12th of January, 1824. After this mournful event, Clapperton, sick and sorrowful as he was, proceeded onward to Kano, with the view of visiting Sackatoo, as was originally intended. He reached this city, (as may be seen in his printed journal) upon the 16th of March, and had many interviews and long conversations with the sultan, Bello. He remained at Sackatoo till the 4th of May, when he began to retrace his steps,—again reached Kuka upon the 8th of July, and arrived in London in the summer of 1825. Clapperton and Denham came from Tripoli to Leghorn, sent the animals and baggage home by sea, under the charge of Hillman, their only surviving companion, while they themselves crossed the Alps, and on the 1st of June, 1825, they reported their arrival in England to Earl Bathurst, under whose auspices the mission had been sent to Africa.