The monarchs of Boossa and Wowow seemed to entertain very different opinions regarding the journey of the Landers. The former insisting on the necessity of their proceeding down the Niger on the eastern or Nouffie side, and the latter making use of strong language to persuade them that the Yarriba side of the river would be the most convenient, the most agreeable, and the safest; and if they would make up their minds not to attend to the king of Boossa's advice, he would send a messenger with them, who should protect them even to the sea. This difference of opinion, they were apprehensive would involve them in a thousand perplexities, yet they could only be guided by circumstances.
At Boossa, they experienced the greatest difficulty and trouble in procuring the bare necessaries of life, but in the flourishing Patashie, provisions were sent to them from the chiefs of the two islands in such abundance, that half of them were thrown to the dogs. The natives of all ages displayed the greatest anxiety to see the white men, and large crowds assembled every day, and waited from morning to night patiently till they had gained the object of their visit. However, they were all as timid as hares, and if the Landers happened to look fixedly in their faces for a moment, most of them, more especially the females and the junior classes of both sexes, started back with terror, as if they had seen a serpent in the grass; and when the Landers attempted to walk near any of them, they ran screaming away, as though they had been pursued by a lion, or were in danger of falling into the jaws of a crocodile, so horrified were these poor people at the bare sight of a white man, and so frightful did their imaginations picture him to be.
On Friday, September 24th, Richard Lander landed for the purpose of proceeding to Wowow, and took possession of a house on the banks of the river, which had been prepared for him. The king of Wowow's messenger accompanied him, and having got everything ready as soon as he could, he commenced his journey to the city.
On his arrival at Wowow, he was too much fatigued to pay his respects to the sovereign, but on the following day, he had prepared himself for the visit to the king's house, but to his great surprise the eccentric old man excused himself from being seen on that day, on the plea that he had taken a ride in the morning to see his gardens, and the exercise had so much tired him, that he felt no inclination whatever to receive his visitors till the following day. It was, therefore, not until the 26th, that he granted Lander an audience, and he then said with the greatest indifference, "I have not yet been able to procure you the canoe which I promised to get, but I have no doubt that the ruler of Patashie will have it in his power to supply you with one to your satisfaction, for which purpose I will send an express to that island without delay, whom I will furnish with the necessary instructions to effect an immediate purchase."
Finding that nothing definitive could be arranged relative to the canoe, Lander prepared to take his departure, but previously to his setting out, he requested the monarch to show him his collection of charms, which were written on sheets of paper, glued or pasted together. Amongst them he discovered a small edition of Watts' Hymns on one of the blank leaves of which was written, Alexander Anderson, Royal Military Hospital, Gosport, 1804. From the Wowow chieftain, as well as from his good old brother, and their quondam Abba, Richard and his attendants received the most liberal hospitality, and on his taking his leave of them, they wished him farewell in the most cordial and affectionate manner.
On the return of Richard Lander to Patashie, preparations were instantly made for their departure, but after all their luggage had been packed up in readiness, information was brought them from the chief, that they could not start until to-morrow, because the Niger would receive a great influx of water during the night, which would be considerably in their favour. To raise any objection to this arrangement was considered as wholly useless, and therefore they quietly awaited the coming of the following day.
Between eight and nine in the morning, horses were brought from the chief and his nephew to take the Landers to the water side, where their luggage had been previously conveyed. Here they had to wait a considerable time till the canoes were brought from another part of the island, there being but one got ready at the time of their arrival. On the arrival of the canoes, and all their things had been removed into them from the beach, they were desired to ride to a landing place further down the island, because of the rocks, which were reported to intercept the stream at a little distance from the place whereon they stood, and to be very dangerous for canoes that were heavily laden. The venerable governor of Patashie, to whom they were under so many obligations, preceded them on the footpath, walking with a staff, and they reached the appointed place of embarkation exactly at the same moment as the canoes. After thanking all the friends that had accompanied them, they jumped on board, and pushed off from the shore, cheered by the natives that were present.
The current bore them rapidly along, and having passed down in front of one or two towns on the banks of the river, they came in sight of Lever, which was the place of their destination, it being about twenty miles from Patashie.
Their surprise was, however, great indeed, when instead of the proper person whom they expected would have received them, they were welcomed on shore by a man called Ducoo, who represented himself as the agent and confidential friend of the prince of Rabba, but their surprise was not a little increased on learning that a party of forty or fifty armed Fellata soldiers were also in the town. Ducoo treated them with the courtly politeness of a Frenchman, and was equally lavish in his compliments and offers of service; he walked with them to the chief of the town, to whom he took the liberty of introducing them, almost before he knew himself who or what they were; went himself and procured excellent lodgings for them, returned and sat down in their company to tell them some droll stories, and impart to them in confidence some very disagreeable news; then hastily arose, went out, and came back again with a sheep and other provisions, which he had obtained by compulsion from the chief, and finally remained with them till long after the moon had risen, when he left them to their repose.
The Landers now began to discover that they had been egregiously imposed upon, for in the first place they found, after all, that Lever did not belong to the king of Wowow, though it stands on his dominions, nor had that monarch a single subject here, or a single canoe, so that they were as far as ever they were from getting one, and with the loss of their horses to boot. They now found to their cost that they had been cajoled and out-manoeuvred by those fellows of Boossa and its adjoining state, whom they falsely conceived to be their dearest and best black friends. They had played with them as if they were great dolls; they had been driven about like shuttlecocks; they had been to them first a gazing stock, and afterwards were their laughing stock, and, perhaps, not unlikely their mockery; they had been their admiration, their buffoons, their wonder and their scorn, a by-word and a jest. Else why this double dealing, this deceit, this chicanery, these hollow professions? "Why," as Richard Lander says, "did they entrap us in this manner? Why have they led us about as though we had been blind, only to place us in the very lap of what they imagine to be danger? For can it be possible that the monarchs of Wowow and Boossa were ignorant of the state of things here, which is in their own immediate neighbourhood, and which have continued the same essentially for these three years? Surely," concludes Lander, "they have knowingly deceived us."