The route of Captain Laing and his party back to Sierra Leone was much the same with that which they had gone when they set out; most of the head men expressing surprise at seeing him again, they in general supposing that he had been killed in the interior, and on the 28th of October, he had the pleasure of being welcomed by his friends at Sierra Leone, “so many of whom, so much esteemed, and so highly valued, are now, alas, no more!”
On Captain Laing’s arrival at Sierra Leone, he received an order to join his regiment on the Gold Coast, without delay, in consequence of the hostilities which had commenced between the British government and the king of the Ashantees.
On his arrival on the Gold Coast, he was employed in the organization and command of a very considerable native force, designed to be auxiliary to a small British detachment, which was then expected from England. During the greater part of the year 1823, this native force was stationed on the frontier of the Fantee and Ashantee countries, and was frequently engaged, and always successfully, with detachments of the Ashantee army.
On the fall of Sir Charles M‘Carthy, which took place early in 1824, Captain Sabine, who edits the Travels, and writes the preface from which we quote, says, “that Lieutenant-Colonel Chisholm, on whom the command of the Gold Coast devolved, deemed it expedient to send Captain Laing to England, for the purpose of acquainting government, more fully than could be done by despatch, with the existing circumstances of the command. Soon after his arrival in England, which took place in August, he obtained a short leave of absence to visit Scotland for the recovery of his health, which had been seriously affected by so many months of such constant and extreme exposure in Africa, as it is probable few constitutions would have supported.”
He returned to London in October of the same year, where an opportunity now presented itself which he had long anxiously desired, of proceeding under the auspices of government, on an expedition to discover the course and termination of the Niger. He was now promoted to the rank of major, and departed from London on that enterprise early in February 1825, with the intention of leaving Tripoli, for Timbuctoo, in the course of the summer of that year. He touched at Malta on his way to Tripoli, where he was shown every attention by the late Marquis of Hastings, at whose table he repeatedly dined.
While at Tripoli, he became acquainted with the British Consul, Mr. Warrington, his business with him producing an intimacy of the closest nature, which was farther cemented by Major Laing’s marrying his daughter, Emma Maria Warrington, an event which took place on the 14th of July 1825. But he had no time to spend in domestic life: two days after marriage he set out for those vallies of death where every preceding traveller had found a grave.
It was on the 17th of July that Major Laing left Tripoli in company of the Sheik Babani, a highly respectable man who had resided in Timbuctoo twenty-two years, and whose wife and children were there still. This Sheik engaged to conduct our traveller thither in two months and a half; and there, or at his neighbouring residence, to deliver him over to the great Marabout Mooktar, by whose influence he would be able to proceed farther in any direction that might be required, according to information received as to the course of the river. This Babani is stated by the Consul of Tripoli, to be “one of the finest fellows, with the best tempered and most prepossessing countenance that he ever beheld; Laing, in all his letters, speaks of him in the highest terms of respect and approbation. As the Gharan mountains were rendered impassable by the defection of a rebellious chief of the Bashaw, who had taken possession of all the passes, the small koffila of Babani took the route of Beneoleed. On the 21st of August they reached Shaté, and, on the 13th of September, arrived safely at Ghadamis, after a “tedious and circuitous journey of nearly a thousand miles.” In the course of this journey, Laing reports the destruction of all his instruments from the heat of the weather, and the jolting of the camels; his barometers broken; his hygrometers rendered useless from the evaporation of the ether; the tubes of most of his thermometers snapt by the warping of the ivory; the glass of the artificial horizon so dimmed by the friction of sand which insinuated itself everywhere, as to render an observation difficult and troublesome; his chronometer stopt, owing, he says, to the extremes of heat and cold, but more probably to the jolting, or the insinuation of sandy particles; and to wind up the catalogue of his misfortunes, the stock of his rifle broken by the great gouty foot of a camel treading upon it. The range of the thermometer in the desert, was from 120° about the middle of the day, to 75°-68°, and once or twice to 62° an hour or two before sunrise, at which time was observable a great incrustation of nitre on the ground, which is the common appearance on the surface of all the known deserts of Africa, from Tripoli to the Cape of Good Hope.
When Major Laing reached Ghadamis, he discovered that his companion, the Sheik Babani, was governor of the town. He considered him a person of sterling worth, with a quiet, inoffensive, unobtrusive character, though at the same time not deficient in decision, but never once suspected him to be a person of so much importance and influence as he all at once discovered him to be. The Sheik immediately lodged him in one of his own houses, with a large garden, and yard for his camels, which were fed at the expense of the governor. Ghadamis is a place of considerable trade; all the koffilas to and from Soudan passing through it. The citizens pay tribute to the Tuaric who inhabit the great Sahara or desert on the western side of Africa for permission to their koffilas to pass without being subjected to plunder. The town contains six or seven thousand inhabitants.
Major Laing left Ghadamis on the 27th of October, and arrived at Ensala on the 3d of December. Ensala is the most eastern town in the province of Tuat, and belongs to the Tuaric: it is considered to be thirty-five days journey distant from Timbuctoo. As he approached this city, some thousands of people, of all ages, came out to meet this Christian traveller. Nothing could exceed the kindness and hospitality with which they received him, and Major Laing returned it, by patiently listening to their complaints, and administering medicine to their diseases to the best of his ability.
The koffila left Ensala on the 10th of January 1826, and on the 26th of the same month entered upon the desert of Tenezarof, about twenty journies from Timbuctoo, a mere desert of sand, perfectly flat, and quite destitute of all verdure. Major Laing, at this time was still an enthusiast in his expedition, and, possessed of good health and spirits, experiencing everywhere, from every person, nothing but good will, kindness, and hospitality. He particularly mentions the services of Hatteta, the Tuaric who had accompanied him thither; he also speaks of the sheik Babani, who, he says, continued “to watch over him with the solicitude of a father.” Shortly after the arrival of a letter with these accounts from Tenezarof, reports reached Tripoli, that the koffila had been attacked by robbers; that the Major’s servant, as well as some others, had been killed, and he himself wounded; at the same time adding, that he had effected his escape to the Marabout Mooktar, who usually resided at a spot only five days journey distant from Timbuctoo. These reports, though they created some uneasiness, were not believed, till a letter was received at Tripoli by Mrs. Laing, indirectly tending to confirm them. She received it on the 20th of September 1826: it was written from the desert of Tenezarof. The following extract is what appears to refer to the circumstances which raised the reports.