“I left Soccatoo the 4th of May, and arrived at Kano the 21st of May. I am waiting here for two hundred and forty-five thousand cowries, for different articles purchased by the Sultan of Soccatoo. As soon as I receive these, which I expect in ten days, I proceed to the sea-side by the way we came, or else by a nearer way by thirty-five miles, ten days due south of Kulfu, called Funda, which I expect is the Bight of Benin, as the Quorra runs to it. This river is called by us the Niger. If the Sultan of Kulfu assures me of the road being safe, I will go, as it will be a great advantage to the English. I send the copy of the Journal from Katunga to this town by an Arab, whom I have told that, on delivering them safe, you will give him thirty dollars.
I remain, &c.
(Signed) “Richard Lander,
“Servant to the late Captain Clapperton.
“Mr. Consul-General Warrington.”
With regard to the Journal of Clapperton, it may be necessary to observe, that it is written throughout in the most loose and careless manner; all orthography and grammar equally disregarded, and many of the proper names quite impossible to be made out; full of tautology, so as to have the same thing repeated over and over again daily, and even on the same day. Much, therefore, has been left out, in sending it to the press, but nothing whatever is omitted, that could be considered of the least importance; and the only change that has been made is that of breaking it into chapters, which is always a relief to the reader. Clapperton was evidently a man of no education; he nowhere disturbs the progress of the day’s narrative by any reflections of his own, but contents himself with noticing objects as they appear before him, and conversations just as they were held; setting down both in his Journal without order, or any kind of arrangement. This may, perhaps, in one respect be considered as an advantage. The reader sees the naked facts as they occurred, and is left free to draw his own inference from them. There is no theory, no speculation, scarcely an opinion advanced throughout the whole of his Journal. He has not contributed much to general science, but, by his frequent observations for the latitude and longitude of places, he has made a most valuable addition to the geography of Northern Africa; and it may now be said of him, what will most probably never be said of any other person, that he has traversed the whole of that country, from the Mediterranean to the Bight of Benin.
The map that accompanies the Journal was constructed entirely from the latitudes and longitudes in a table annexed to that document. That portion of it which shows the route pursued by Richard Lander on his return, till stopped by the Fellatas at Dunrora, and from thence back again to Zegzeg, was laid off from the bearings and distances marked down by this intelligent young man; and no better proof is wanting of its general accuracy than that of his return route closing in with the fixed point Zaria, or Zegzeg, within ten miles.
It is greatly to be regretted, that the premature deaths of Captain Pearce and Dr. Morrison have deprived the world of many beautiful specimens of art, and many valuable acquisitions to the stores of natural history. Among the vegetable products of the tropical regions of North Africa, which, from the general descriptions here and there given, are of great beauty and fertility, there are no doubt to be found many new and valuable species; the whole line from the Bight of Benin to Soccatoo being entirely untrodden ground, consisting of every variety of feature, mostly left in a state of nature, and a great portion of it covered with magnificent forests.
Various notices are given, in the Journal, of two objects of peculiar interest, which are still left open for further investigation; the course and termination of the river which has been (improperly, as it now appears) called the Niger, and the recovery of the papers, which still exist, of the late Mungo Park. The exact spot on which he perished, and the manner of his death, are now ascertained with precision. The former of these inquiries will now be considered, perhaps, to have lost much of its original interest, by the deflection which that river takes from its easterly into that of a southerly course; and which, in point of fact and strict propriety, has destroyed every pretension to its continuing the name of Niger. It cannot be supposed that either Herodotus, or Ptolemy, or Pliny, or any Greek or Roman writer whatever, could have had the slightest intimation of such a river as this, so far to the westward and to the southward of the Great Desert, of the crossing of which by any of the ancient travellers there does not exist the slightest testimony. The name of Quorra, or Cowarra, by which it is known universally in Soudan, and probably also to the westward of Timbuctoo, ought now, therefore, to be adopted on our charts of Africa.
With regard to its termination, the reports continue to be contradictory, and the question is still open to conjecture. Its direction, as far as has now been ascertained, points to the Bight of Benin; but there is still a considerable distance, and a deep range of granite mountains intervening, between the point to which with any certainty it has been traced, and the sea-coast. If, however, it be the fact, that the river of Benin has been traced as high up as is marked on the chart (and it is taken from an old chart of the year 1753, stated to have been engraved for Postlethwayte’s Dictionary), that distance, between the lowest ascertained point of the Quorra and the highest of the Benin, is reduced to little more than a degree of latitude, or about seventy miles; but it is seventy miles of a mountainous country. By our occupation of the beautiful and fertile island of Fernando Po, and the extension of African commerce which may be anticipated in consequence thereof, there can be little doubt that this question of their identity or otherwise will ere long be decided.