After the usual lapse of time, the Boossa messenger returned, and to their unspeakable joy, informed them that the king had consented to procure for them a canoe, to proceed to Funda, provided the road by land could not be depended on. He, however, candidly stated his inability to protect their persons from insult and danger beyond his own territories, and that they must solicit the good will of the prince of Wowow, and the other rulers on the banks of the Niger, and further, that their own men alone must manage the canoe, because no one at Boossa would be willing, for various reasons, to accompany them on the journey. They were, therefore, in a fair way of accomplishing the object of the expedition. The sultan of Yaoorie, however, put off their departure from day to day, and from week to week, under a variety of nonsensical excuses, and they were persuaded that it was his intention to detain them, until he had drained them of every thing that was valuable. On Monday the 26th of July, however, to their surprise and pleasure, a messenger from the king of Boossa arrived, to ascertain the reason of such unwarrantable conduct on the part of the sultan, and to request their immediate release. One of the inducements urged by this monarch for their longer stay with him, was rather whimsical. He had made them a present of a quantity of worthless feathers, which he had caused to be plucked from the body of a live ostrich, and because he entertained an opinion that if others were added to them, they would altogether form a very acceptable present to the king of England, he informed them that it would be necessary they should wait till such time as the ostrich should regain its plumage, in order for that part of its body, which had not been previously plucked, to undergo a similar operation, for the weather, he asserted, was much too cold for the bird to lose all its feathers at one and the same time, and further to encourage their growth, he would order that two thousand kowries worth of butter, (about twelve pounds weight,) should be diligently rubbed into the skin of the animal. This was, however, an arch trick on the part of the sultan, for he was indebted to the Landers in a considerable sum for some buttons, which he had purchased of them, and this butter affair was intended as a kind of set-off, as the sultan said he did not approve of paying for the butter out of his own pocket. On the 1st August, the sultan sent a messenger to inform them that they were at liberty to pay their respects, and take their farewell of him previously to their departure from the city, which they were assured should take place on the following day, without any further procrastination or delay. They were glad to obey the summons, for such they considered it, and on their arrival at his residence, they were introduced into a large, gloomy, uncomfortable apartment; a number of swallows' nests were attached to the ceiling of the room, and their twittering owners, which were flying about in all directions, fed their young without interruption, and added not a little to the filthiness of the unswept and unclean apartment. The conversation during the interview was as uninteresting and spiritless, as their conversations with other native rulers had always been. The sultan, however, could not pay his debt, but by way of another set-off he offered them a female slave, which was just as much use to them as the ostrich feathers, however, the sultan was resolved to pay them in that species of coin, and therefore they took the lady, and old Pascoe immediately adopted her as his wife.
On Monday the 2nd, all was hurry, bustle, and confusion, in getting their things ready for their departure, and after the beasts had been laden, and the people had their burdens on their head, they had to wait for the sultan's long expected letter to the king of England. A mallam was at length perceived hurrying towards them with it, and after him came the venerable Arab chief, to honour them with his company a little way on their journey. This crafty old man was not their friend, for he had used them deceitfully, and misrepresented them and their goods to his master, and they enjoyed an innocent kind of revenge, in administering to him, after repeated applications, a powerful dose of medicine, which though harmless in its effects, had yet been very troublesome to him. Indeed it was not till they had "jalaped" the sultan, his sister, and all the royal family, that they were permitted to take their farewell of Yaoorie.
The following is the letter of the sultan of Yaoorie, as it was translated into English by A. O. Salame:
"Praise be to God, and blessings and salutations be unto that (prophet), since whom there has been no other prophet.
"To our friend in God, and his apostle (Mahommed), the prince of the English Christians; salutation and mercy, and blessings of God, be unto you, from your friend, the sultan of Yaouri, whose name is Mahommed Ebsheer. Perfect salutation be unto you, (and) may God cause your mornings and evenings to be most happy, with multiplied salutations (from us).
"After our salutation unto you (some) ostrich feathers will reach you, (as a present,) from the bounty and blessings of God (we have in our country), and we, together with you, thank God (for what he has bestowed). And salutation be unto your hired people, (your suite) and peace be unto our people, who praise God.
(Signed,) From the
PRINCE OF YAOURI."
Of this letter, Mr. Salame says, that it is the worst of the African papers which he had seen, both as to its ungrammatical and unintelligible character. Indeed, his Yaourick majesty seemed to be sadly in need of words to make himself intelligible. It must be remarked, that the words between parentheses are not in the original, but supplied by the translator for the purpose of reducing the letter to some kind of meaning.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Owing to the reputed badness of the path, that by which the Landers had entered Yaoorie, was rejected for a more northerly one, leading in almost a direct line to the river Cubbie. About mid-day they arrived at the walls of a pretty considerable town, called Guàda, and halted near a small creek of a river flowing from Cubbie, and entering the Niger a little lower down. Here, as soon as they had taken a slight refreshment, they sent their beasts across the Niger to proceed by land to Boossa, and embarked in two canoes, which were each paddled by four men. On entering the Niger, they found it running from two to three miles an hour, and they proceeded down the river till the sun had set; and the moon was shining beautifully on the water, as they drew near to a small Cumbrie village on the borders of the river, where they landed and pitched their tent. The inhabitants of many of the numerous walled towns and open villages on the banks of the Niger, and also of the islands, were found to be for the most part Cumbrie people, a poor, despised, and abused, but industrious and hard-working race. Inheriting from their ancestors a peaceful, timid, passionless, incurious disposition, they fall an easy prey to all who choose to molest them; they bow their necks to the yoke of slavery without a murmur, and think it a matter of course; and perhaps no people in the world are to be found who are less susceptible of intense feeling, and the finer emotions of the human mind, on being stolen away from their favourite amusements and pursuits, and from the bosom of their wives and families, than these Cumbrie people, who are held in general disesteem. Thousands of them reside in the kingdom of Yaoorie, and its province of Engarski, and most of the slaves in the capital have been taken from them.