As Clapperton and Lander proceeded on their journey towards Sackatoo, the latter was seized with dysentery, and while he continued ill and weak, he experienced the kindness of his generous master in a very marked manner. Though his own strength was fast declining, Lander says of him, “whenever we came to a stream which was too deep to ford, and unfurnished with a ferry-boat, being too weak myself to swim, my generous master used to take me on his shoulders, and often times at the imminent risk of his own life, carry me in safety to the opposite bank.”
On their arrival at Kano, Lander was left in that town while Clapperton proceeded to Sackatoo, the capital of Bello, Sultan of the Felathas, on whose account chiefly this second mission had been undertaken. Bello at this time happened to be at war, and with his army encamped before Coonia, the capital of Goobur. Clapperton went there to join him, was most kindly received by him, and had an opportunity of witnessing the African mode of fighting in a furious assault which was made upon the city of Coonia the day after his arrival in the camp. Soon after this event he reached Soccatoo, where for about six months he inhabited the same house which he had occupied during his first visit to that city. The Sultan sent to Kano and brought Lander and the baggage to his capital, and on their arrival the baggage was seized, under pretence that Clapperton was conveying guns and warlike stores to the Sheik of Bornou, with whom Bello was then at war. He was next ordered to deliver up Lord Bathurst’s letter to the Shiek, and indeed every thing which was supposed to form a part of the intended present to him was seized upon. Clapperton remonstrated against these nefarious proceedings with the utmost earnestness, but without effect. He was stript of every thing, and detained himself as a prisoner. The effect of this treatment upon his spirits was so great, that Lander declares he never saw him smile afterwards.
He was strongly impressed with the idea that the Arabs had stirred up the Africans against him and his companions. By their insinuations against them in the hearing of Bello, they succeeded in undermining their reputation with that monarch. Clapperton had not been perfectly well from the day of his arrival in Africa, and the entire failure of his mission, and the ungenerous treatment he had experienced at Soccatoo, were the means of bringing on his last illness and hastening his death.
As long as he was able, while at Soccatoo, he was in the habit of spending whole days in shooting, dressed in the costume of the country; his beard was long and flowing, and he lived in a clay hut like an enormous bee hive. At night he and Lander used frequently to smoke cigars for an hour or two together; but in every other respect they lived like the Africans. Sometimes they sung, and Clapperton was delighted to listen while Lander sung, “My Native Highland Home.”
Then gang wi’ me to Scotland, dear,
We ne’er again will roam,
And with thy smile sae bonny, cheer
My native Highland home.
For blithsome is the breath of day,
And sweet’s the bonny broom,