Major Alexander Gordon Laing, another of those adventurous spirits who met with their common fate, in the attempt to explore the interior of Africa, was born at Edinburgh on the 27th December 1794, and was the eldest son of Mr. William Laing, A.M., one of the most popular classical teachers of his day. In his academy, in the New Town of Edinburgh, young Laing received nearly the whole of his education, at least all that was necessary to prepare him for the university. Possessing a quick intuitive perception, and an ardent thirst for classical knowledge, his progress was in proportion; and at the early age of thirteen, he entered the university of Edinburgh. Here his attainments became still more marked, and Professor Christison, who then occupied the humanity chair, observing his literary taste, used to point him out in the public class as worthy the imitation of his fellow-students, though few might hope to surpass him.
When about fifteen, Laing went to Newcastle, where for six months he filled the situation of assistant to Mr. Bruce, a teacher in that city; he then returned to Edinburgh, and entered upon a similar duty under his father, a situation for which he was singularly qualified.
It appears strange that a young man, quietly, and, at the same time, eagerly, pursuing the laborious profession of a schoolmaster, should have afterwards adopted another line of life forming a perfect contrast to that in which he had been previously employed. The change of his tastes is wholly to be attributed to his connexion with the volunteers. At a time when volunteering was very general, Alexander Laing entered one of the corps then forming; and in 1810 was made an ensign in the Prince of Wales’s Edinburgh Volunteers, then being in his seventeenth year. Captivated with the specimen he there had of a military life, he desired earnestly to be a soldier. He could no longer submit to the restraints and routine of school discipline; and at the end of the second year, he finally gave up the now to him irksome duties of teaching, to the disappointment of his parents and relatives, who were very desirous that he should not change his profession. Being, however, bent upon the military service, he, in the year 1811, went out to Barbadoes, where his maternal uncle, Colonel, afterwards General Gabriel Gordon, then was, with whom he remained a short time till he obtained an ensigncy in the York Light Infantry, which regiment he immediately joined at Antigua, and in two years thereafter he was promoted to a lieutenancy in the same corps—a situation which he held till the regiment was reduced, when he was then placed upon half pay.
But anxious for occupation, he exchanged, as speedily as the affair could be negotiated, into the second West India regiment, which he joined at Jamaica. While there, he had to discharge the duties of deputy quartermaster-general, the exertions of which department brought on a liver complaint, for which his medical advisers recommended a sea voyage. He accordingly sailed to Honduras, by which his complaint was considerably relieved, and the governor, Colonel Arthur, finding him an active, useful, and intelligent officer, appointed him to the office of fort-major, and would not suffer him to return to Jamaica, but had him attached to another division of his regiment then in Honduras, where he remained till a return of his complaint forced him to come home, his frame being so much debilitated, that he was unable to walk, so that it became necessary to carry him on shipboard.
His constitution was very seriously injured by this illness, and in consequence he remained nearly eighteen months with his friends in Scotland. During this time, however, that half of the second West India regiment to which he was attached was reduced, and he was again placed upon half-pay. In the autumn of 1819, he returned to London, and having been sent for by the late Sir Henry Torrens, then Colonel of his regiment, was familiarly complimented by him on his former services, immediately appointed lieutenant and adjutant, and proceeded to Sierra Leone.
Early in January 1822, Lieutenant Laing was sent by the late governor, Sir Charles M‘Carthy, on an embassy to Kambia and the Mandingo country, to ascertain the political state of those districts, the disposition of the inhabitants to trade, and their sentiments in regard to the abolition of the slave trade. Sir Charles was perfectly satisfied with the manner in which his instructions were executed, and with the information he received on the different heads.
Having fulfilled the purposes of the mission at Kambia, he crossed the river Scarcies, and proceeded on foot to Malacouri, a strongly fortified Mandingo town, situated on the banks of the river Malageea, about twenty miles N. by W. from Kambia, where he learned that Amara had applied to the king of the Soolimas, who had sent a numerous army to his assistance, by whose means he had taken Malageea, the principal town belonging to Sannassee, and had made that chief a prisoner. Here he was also informed, that Amara meant to put Sannassee to death after the performance of several ceremonies. The Soolima force was stated to exceed ten thousand in number, and commanded by Yaradee, a brother of the king, who had acquired some renown as a warrior. Of the Soolimas, little more than the name was known at Sierra Leone: they were reported, however, to be a very powerful nation, residing in the interior, at a distance of three or four hundred miles to the eastward of Sierra Leone.
Sannassee having always been upon the most friendly terms with our government, and the unforgiving disposition of Amara being well known, great alarm was excited for the unfortunate chieftain whom he had in his power; Laing therefore, though suffering under a severe attack of fever and ague, proceeded to the Soolima camp to mediate between Amara and the captive Sannassee. His account of this expedition is as follows:
“About two miles beyond the river Malageea, which I crossed near its source, I fell in with an outlying picket of the Soolimas, consisting of about fifty men, with sentries regularly posted, to whom I was obliged to explain my purpose before the chief of the guard would permit me to pass: another mile west brought me to a stronger guard of about one hundred and fifty men; and a mile and a-half farther to a large savannah or plain where the whole army was encamped. It was now nearly nine o’clock, and being very faint and feverish, I was glad to take refuge from the rays of the morning sun, which, in this part of Africa is the most oppressive time of the day, under a few bundles of dried grass thrown loosely upon three sticks fixed apart in the ground at equal distances, the tops being drawn together and fastened after the manner of military triangles. These temporary dwellings, when well constructed, form no bad imitation of, or substitute for, bell-tents, possessing this advantage, that they can be erected with little trouble, and no expense, in a short time, whenever an army takes up a position. From this covering I had a view of the whole encampment, which exhibited the appearance and bustle of a well attended fair, rather than the regularity and discipline of military quarters. Tents constructed as above described, were to be seen covering the savannah as far as the trees, windings, and other obstacles, would permit the eye to reach; and the distinguishing flags of the various and numerous tribes were everywhere to be observed waving over the habitations of their respective chiefs. Music, a horrid din of a variety of barbarous instruments broke on the ear from every direction; while parties of men, grotesquely habited in war dresses, were here and there descried, brandishing their cutlasses, and capering with the most extravagant gestures, to the time of the various sounds produced. The novelty of the scene attracted my attention for a while,—but fatigue, arising from the ague of the preceding night, at length overcame my curiosity. About noon I was awoke by one of my followers, who acquainted me that Amara was ready to hold a palaver with me, and desired my immediate attendance. In my way to his tent I visited Satin Lai, a designing Mandingo chief, possessing much power; he had been mainly instrumental in putting Amara on the throne, and was at this time the only staunch adherent to the king, who, by following too implicitly his advice, had lowered himself considerably in the opinion of his head men, who form the principal strength of an African king. I found Satin Lai, a good-looking man, apparently between sixty and seventy years of age, about five feet ten inches in height, affable in his deportment, with a mild and amiable countenance which is said to be rather at variance with his actions. He was performing the office of a commissary, surrounded by several hundred baskets of white rice, which he was distributing to the different tribes in quantities proportionate to their strength. In one corner of the tent some of his slaves were employed in cooking, in another his horse was feeding, encircled with Moorish trapping, spears, muskets, bows and quivers. On appearing before the tent of Amara, I was directed to seat myself under the shade of a large booth covered with cocoa-nut branches and plantain leaves, capable of containing and sheltering from the rays of the sun upwards of two thousand people; here the king soon joined me, and the war drum being beat, the booth was shortly filled with a motley assemblage of armed men. Booths of corresponding size, erected at right angles, and parallel to the one in which I sat, so as to form a large square, were also soon crowded with hordes of Soolimas, Bennas, Tambaccas, and Sangaras, in all, amounting to about ten thousand men, while the inclosed space was free to such as were desirous of exhibiting in feats of warlike exercises, in dancing, and in music. As the exibitions on this occasion were of the same kind with those which I afterwards saw in the Soolima country on similar occasions, and which will be described hereafter, I shall merely observe that Yaradee, the general of the Soolima army, was particularly conspicuous in exhibiting on horseback the various evolutions of African attack and defence. When their performances were concluded, I had an interview with Yaradee, and obtaining from him an assurance that Sannassee’s life should be preserved, I took my leave, receiving many protestations of friendship. A subsequent conversation with Amara, in which I explained his Excellency’s wishes, terminated my visit to the camp, which I quitted at sunset, and proceeded direct on my return to Sierra Leone, where I did not arrive till the sixth day, having suffered much inconvenience on the journey, from the effects of increasing illness.”
We have given this account entire, that the reader may understand the kind of natives that he had to deal with in his after intercourse with them. His interference seemed here to have terminated happily for Sannassee, but he was scarcely recovered from his illness, when it was reported that all his efforts had been of no avail; and the governor, still anxious to save the life of his ally, asked Laing again to undertake another embassy for the same object; he complied, again visited the Soolima camp, where he found that Amara had set Sannassee at liberty, after first burning his town, and then plundering his property. Lieutenant Laing did not waste time in a longer palaver than was just sufficient to mark the displeasure of the governor regarding their conduct to Sannassee. He was accompanied on this mission by Mr. Mackie, assistant surgeon, who, together with Lieutenant Laing, were the objects of undisguised astonishment to Yarradee, who scrutinized every article of their dress with great minuteness; and on observing Laing pull off his gloves, “he stared with surprise, covered his widely opened mouth with his hands, and at length he exclaimed, ‘Alla ackbar,’ he has pulled the skin off his hands.” Lieutenant Laing and Mr. Mackie reached Sierra Leone after an absence of six days and a-half during the whole of which time they had not been under shelter for a single hour. While upon this second mission he had observed that many men who accompanied the Soolima army possessed considerable quantities of gold, and having learned that ivory abounded in Soolima, he suggested to the governor the advantage to the colony of opening up an intercourse with these people.