It is sufficient to mention that on the 7th of May he reached the last town of the Timmannee country; called Ma-Boom, part of which was inhabited by Koorankos, in which part he took up his residence, as through that country it was now his intention to proceed.
He found very great difficulty in getting away from Ma-Boom, owing to the greediness and treachery of Smeilla, the head man of the place, who laid a plan of assault and robbery upon him and his party, but from which he was preserved by the sagacity of his servant, Musah, and his own decision. With the other inhabitants of Ma-Boom he seemed pleased, particularly the Mandingo families, and the country around, he says, is thickly wooded, and abounds with rich pasturages, well stocked with cattle, sheep, and goats.
The next station was Kooloofa, where they received a kind but noisy welcome, being prevented from sleeping during the night by barbarous music in honour of their visit. “They, one and all,” says Lieutenant Laing, “thanked God for my appearance among them: they said they could not live without trade, and on that account, if for no other, they were glad to see a white man come into the country to open a good road.” He easily received permission to depart from Kooloofa, and left it with the best wishes of a numerous crowd, assembled to witness his departure. After passing through several places, they reached Seemera, where he was as kindly received as at Kooloofa, the king “thanking God that he had seen a white man, and would do any thing to help him, as he was sure he could have no other object in coming to this country than to do good.” While there the place was visited by a tremendous tornado. The house where Laing slept being badly thatched, the lightning kept it in almost perpetual illumination, and, as he himself expresses it, the holes in the roof gave him the full benefit of a shower bath. He was detained here a short time, partly by the rain, during which time the king sent a company of dancers to dance before him for his diversion. His route, after leaving Seemera, was difficult and dangerous, he and his party having to endure several heavy tornadoes, rough roads, and plots laid to rob him of his baggage. His remarks upon what he observed during this journey must be extremely interesting to a geologist, and, indeed, to any man of science, for which, however, we again refer to his travels.
While at Worrowyah, he was entertained by some female singers, the tenor of whose song, he said, did not please him. They sung “of the white man who had come to their town; the houseful of money which he had; such cloth, such beads, such fine things had never been seen in Kooranko before; if their husbands were men, and wished to see their wives well dressed, they ought to take some of the money from the white man.” He was saved from the effects of this advice by one of his suite called Tamba, who answered them by a counter song. He sung of “Sierra Leone, of houses a mile in length filled with money; that the white man who was here had nothing compared to those in Sierra Leone; if, therefore, they wished to see some of the rich men from that country come into Kooranko, they must not trouble this one; whoever wanted to see a snake’s tail must not strike it on the head.” This song was applauded, and Lieutenant Laing was allowed to keep his money.
While at Kamato, which he reached on the 29th of May, Laing had a severe attack of fever, which lasted for several days. As he was recovering from the attack, a messenger arrived from the king of the Soolimas, with a party, and two horses, to convey him to their country, his majesty being very desirous to see him within his territories. Laing was very glad to accept of the invitation, so on the morning of the 5th of June, he mounted one of the horses, and left the Kooranko country for a time. It was not till the 11th that he reached the royal city, having in his way thither received much kindness and hospitality from the native head men of the villages through which they passed; one head man, says our traveller, “took off his cap, and lifting his aged eyes to heaven, fervently thanked his Creator for having blessed him with the sight of a white man before he died.”
When Lieutenant Laing reached Falaba, which was the residence of the king of the Soolimas, he was saluted with a heavy and irregular discharge of musketry, which he ordered to be returned with three rounds from his party, and then alighting, shook hands with the king, who presented him with two massive gold rings, and made him sit down beside him. The king and the Lieutenant were scarcely seated, when his old friend Yaradee, better dressed than when he last met him, mounted on a fiery charger, crossed the parade at full gallop, followed by about thirty warriors on horseback, and two thousand on foot,—the equestrians returning and performing many evolutions, to the amazement and admiration of the spectators. After which many other spectacles were exhibited for the diversion of his guest by the king of the Soolimas. Yaradee was particularly kind to Lieutenant Laing, saying, “he was a proud man that day, the first day in which a white man had ever been in the Soolima country.”
The different chieftains paid homage to our traveller, when they saw how highly he was thought of by their sovereign, and he was teazed with speeches and remarks addressed to him by a crowd for the pleasure of hearing him speak, and whenever he did so, they would shout, “He speaks, the white man speaks.” He said these marks of attention would have delighted him any other time, but his horse having fallen with him, he had been precipitated into the water of a marsh he was crossing at the time of the accident, which brought on an attack of fever, from which, however, he recovered in about three days. Those who wish to see an account of the fetes and the excursions, designed principally in honour of Lieutenant Laing, must read his travels, in which they will find an interesting account.
Feeling again the intimations of approaching illness, he shortened his interviews, and came to the great business of the mission, free intercourse and trade, and the desire of Sir Charles M‘Carthy to cultivate a good understanding with them; and then producing his presents, which were considerable, every thing was adjusted in the most amicable manner: but he had scarcely returned to his hut, when the fever was renewed with redoubled violence, and, stretching himself on his mat, he resigned himself to the disease which for nine or ten days prevented him from rising; three days of which he was in a state of delirium. On his consciousness returning he found he had been cupped by one of the country doctors, which had been of great service to him. During this illness his meteorological observations ceased, and it was, as he expresses it, “with a grief bordering on distraction that he thought upon his chronometer, which, as nobody could wind up but himself, had unavoidably gone down.”
It was on the 1st of July that he found himself able to write a few lines to acquaint his friends at Sierra Leone with his arrival at Falaba, and that he hoped soon to be able to go even farther eastward; two natives of Soolima volunteering to be the bearers of his despatches. On the 11th, he was so well as to mount on horseback and take a survey of the adjacent country, but from the delay occasioned by the unwillingness of the king to allow him to depart, it was not till the 17th of September that he finally quitted Falaba in order to return to Sierra Leone; having resided in the Soolima country more than three months. He was on the 9th of September gratified by the return of the messengers he had sent to Sierra Leone; he received the packet they conveyed to him with exquisite delight; but besides the kind letters of his friends, they sent “tobacco, sugar, a little brandy, which soon disappeared among the Soolimas, and, though last not least, two pairs of good shoes, a luxury to which his feet had for some time been unaccustomed. He was also furnished, through the kindness of Dr. Barry, staff-surgeon at Sierra Leone, with a lancet and two glass plates of preserved vaccine virus, with which, on the 13th, he was permitted to inoculate a number of children, commencing with those of the king himself,” who had so much confidence in him, that Laing says “he believed he would have permitted him to have attempted the most extravagant experiment upon any of his own family.” If he had possessed sufficient virus, he continues, “I might have inoculated all the children in Falaba: the yard was absolutely crowded with old men and women, holding young children in their arms, and forming a group worthy of the pencil of a West or a Rubens.” He very naturally remarks upon it as an interesting fact, “that a nation so far in the interior of Africa, should have so readily submitted, at the instigation of a white man, who was almost a stranger to them, to an operation against which so much prejudice existed for so many years in the most enlightened and civilized countries in Europe. When the general prevalence of superstitious fear from greegrees and fetishes is duly considered, this fact presents a strong proof of the confidence which the natives of Western Africa repose in the measures of white people to benefit them; and affords a no less strong presumption, that their other superstitious notions might soon be found to give way, in like manner, to the labours of the missionary: and their present barbarous habits of obtaining slaves for trade by force of arms, to the more rational proceeding of cultivating the soil for articles of commercial exchange.”
The day that he quitted Falaba, which, as has been already stated, was on the 17th of September, the natives in great numbers accompanied him for a considerable distance, the females making most extravagant demonstrations of grief; the king accompanied him a little farther, when a parting took place, which we shall insert in Captain Laing’s own words, (for while at Falaba, he had received intelligence of his promotion to the rank of captain). “At length the old man stopped and said, he was now to see me for the last time. The tears were in his eyes, and the power of utterance seemed to have forsaken him for a while. Holding my hand still fast, he said ‘white man, think of Falaba, for Falaba will always think of you: the men laughed when you came among us, the women and children feared and hid themselves: they all sit now with their heads in their hands, and with tears in their eyes because you leave us. I shall remember all you have said to me; you have told me what is good, and I know that it will make my country great; I shall make no more slaves.’ Then squeezing me affectionately by the hand, and turning away his head, he gently loosened his grasp, and saying, ‘Go, and return to see us,’ he covered his face with his hands. I felt as if I had parted from a father. Such remembrances impress themselves too deeply in the heart to be effaced by time or distance, and establish a permanent interest in the welfare of a country, which may have a material influence on the after life of the individual who entertains them.”