4:00 P.M.
by Richard N. Moersch M.D.
Assembly Room, A. K. Smiley Public
Library
The decision of a men's discussion
society meeting in London in 1788 to promote the investigation and exploration of West
Africa was principally one of intellectual curiosity on the part of the members. over the
next forty years however, it led to the opening of this enormous and hidden area of the
world as well as setting the foundation for the commercial and military domination of this
part of Africa by the British and French empires. This was accomplished at little cost to
the involved governments but at a terrible price paid by the ill-equipped vainglorious
young men sent out by these armchair dilettantes.
BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR, Richard N. Moersch M.D.
It may seem strange that so little was known about the great westward bulge of Africa,
relatively close to Europe, at a time when the Western Hemisphere was mapped and colonized
- and the United States had just realized its independence . English soldiers and traders
were active in India and the Far East, and yet the source and even the direction of flow
of the Niger, one of the great rivers of the world was unknown. No European of recent
memory had stepped foot in fabled and wealthy Timbuktu. There was no sense of West Africa
as a historical entity, although it was one of two major centers of population on the
continent. The two paramount reasons for this were its geographic isolation and the
penetration of Islam into Africa. The enormity of the Saharan Desert to the north and east
and the pestilent and deadly jungle to the south and east effectively barred penetration
from the outside. The Niger basin was basically a Moslem world with pockets of Animism,
and the rulers were determined to keep outsiders away.
There had been great kingdoms in the area, the three most important being that of Ghana
in the eighth through the tenth centuries, the Mali Empire in the twelfth and thirteenth
and that of the Songhai for the next two hundred years. All three were wealthy, powerful
and sophisticated. An Arab merchant, visiting Ghana described its sovereign as the richest
ruler in the world, while another, two hundred years later was astounded by the prevalent
peace, order and racial tolerance. Learning also accompanied the Islamic penetration and
important universities existed in Timbuktu and Gao well before the founding of Oxford and
Cambridge. A combination of circumstances led to the deterioration of these stable
empires: southward expansion of the Sahara, military encroachment from Morocco and the
Portuguese coastal explorations, giving them access to the gold fields south of the Niger.
By the time of the founding of the Africa Association little was known of this large blank
area on European maps. Two incredible Arab scholar-travelers of the fourteenth and
sixteenth centuries, Ibn Batuta and Leo Africanus provided most of what was known and even
they could not agree on whether the Niger flowed toward the east or westward. If more was
to be learned, to satisfy the curiosity of that inquisitive age, someone was going to have
to overcome considerable obstacles to reach these regions.
As for the Niger itself, it was a most unusual river, a joining of two distinct rivers
which had originally flowed in opposite directions. The western or upper Niger, called the
Joliba, arose near the Atlantic and went northeasterly 500 miles beyond Timbuktu, draining
into the salt lake of Juf. The Quorra originated in the mid Sahara and ran south to empty
into the Gulf of Guinea. The gradual drying of the Sahara over centuries produced a
shifting of the rivers and the capture of the Joliba by the Quorra. The great bend of the
Niger marks the site of the capture. As can be imagined, this served to contribute to the
confusion regarding the river and its lands..
The renamed Saturday Club did not dawdle; within a month the first young explorer was
on his way. The early explorers were sent out unprepared and ill-equipped, with vague
instructions regarding their goal. The principal end was to establish the course and lands
of the Niger, with attainment to Timbuktu in the background. The initial volunteer was
John Ledyard, a 37 year old American adventurer. Born in Connecticut, he attended
Dartmouth College to be groomed as a missionary to the Indians, by Eleazor Wheelock,
founder of the college. He grew restless however, and after a few months chopped down one
of the local pines , carved it into a rude dugout and paddled away to live with other
Indian tribes in the Northwest, adopting their customs. The boathouse for the Dartmouth
rowing crew bears his name. Four years later he showed up in England and talked himself
into joining the last expedition of Captain Cook. On this voyage he saw Africa, India, the
Antarctic and sailed through the Bering Strait; he was with Cook when the great navigator
was killed on the island of Hawaii. Five years later he appeared in Paris where he was
befriended by Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson and with their support headed across Russia
and Siberia by horse-drawn sledge, investigating similarities between tribes there and the
Indians of North America. A victim of changing political winds, he was arrested as a
French spy, 100 miles from the Pacific coast, dragged back to the Polish border and
banished from the country. He made his way back to London, visited Sir Joseph Banks and
became the first volunteer. Six weeks after returning from Siberia he was on his way to
Egypt, from where he proposed to strike thousands of miles west across the Sahara,
searching for the Niger and its origins.The tragic anticlimax to this heroic beginning is
that he contracted intestinal disease while on the Nile, and after taking a purgative
died, vomiting blood.
While Ledyard was Alexandria-bound, a second recruit was found. Simon Lucas was the son
of a wine merchant and an acquaintance of Beaufoy. As a youth, while traveling to Cadiz to
learn the wine trade, he had been captured by Barbary pirates and sold as a slave in
Morocco. While a royal slave he had learned much of the court and the language, and
sixteen years later returned to London as "Oriental Interpreter" to the Court of
St. James. As an alternative to the east-west approach of Ledyard, a north-south
investigation was proposed and he sailed for Tripoli., arriving in mid-October, 1788.He
met the Bashaw of Tripoli to seek his help and was told that the time was impropitious
because of tribal warfare in the Fezzan. Turning elsewhere, he enlisted the aid of two
sheriffs of Fezzan, who offered to guide him there. He set out in Arabic disguise, but
when the first governor he met again warned him of danger ahead he stopped. His two guides
finally became impatient and left without him. While Ledyard was precipitous, Lucas was
overly cautious; he left Africa and next was heard from in Marseilles in June 1789,
penniless and apologetic. He did tell the Association that he was bringing back much
information and packets of seeds, but did not feel himself cut out for exploration. Civil
service was more to his liking and two years later he was named to the post of consul in
Tripoli.
The failure of the attempts to reach the Niger from the east and from the north did not
deter the Association, and in July 1790 a third candidate was interviewed. Daniel Houghton
was a sturdy and cheerful Irishman, a retired army major. During his career he had been
posted on Goree Island, just off the coast of Senegal, where he had learned the native
Mandingo language and had become friends with native princes. Bankrupt and desperate for
employment, he asked only for 800 pounds for expenses. When he sailed he left behind his
wife and three children; the Association sent her the sum of 10 pounds. Banks explained
that "As an Association, they were not justified in appropriating money subscribed
for the purposes of discovery to the maintenance of individuals, who happened to be
connected to those whom they employ".
Houghton was to move up the Gambia River, approaching the Nile from the west. Almost
immediately he ran into trouble, having to swim across the river to escape traders who
were trying to kill him. Many of his supplies were burned in a mysterious fire and much of
what was left was stolen as he moved inland. His only communication - a letter to Beaufoy
that slowly made its way back to London - suggested that he remained in good spirits and
added that he had met a merchant who would guide him to Timbuktu. Beaufoy thought that he
had good chances of success, adding that "such is the darkness of his complexion that
he scarcely differs in appearance from the Moors, whose dress in traveling he intended to
assume". A scribbled note to a local trader some months later was the last word from
him, but it did say he had reached the village of Simbing, halfway to his goal. Nothing
further was known until five years later when another British explorer was shown the site
of his robbery and murder at that village. Houghton did report that the flow of the Niger
was to the east, his principal achievement. His wife wound up in debtor's prison.
The next candidate - and the one who would
achieve the most renown - was again a protégé of Sir Joseph Banks. A nurseryman of
London, James Dickson, had written several botanical monographs and was a friend of Banks.
Dickson's Scottish wife had a younger brother who had just graduated from medical school
in Edinburgh and was casting about for a position. Dickson introduced him to Banks, who
arranged a position for him as ship's surgeon on an East India Company ship bound for
Sumatra. The young Munro Park would return a year later with information
on eight new species of fish and a great thirst for travel. In addition, young Munro was
consumed with ambition. While on the way to Sumatra he wrote to Dr. Thomas Anderson, the
Selkirk surgeon who had helped him get into medical school: "I have now got upon the
first step of the stair of ambition....Macbeth's start when he beheld the dagger was a
mere jest compared to mine".
A year after his return from the East Indies, Park offered his services to the African
Association. The interviewing committee found him to be " a young man of no mean
talents who has been regularly educated in the medical line.... and sufficiently
instructed in the use of Hadley's quadrant to make the necessary observations; geographer
enough to trace his path through the wilderness, and not unacquainted with natural
history". His offer was accepted and it was decided to recruit 50 more men to act as
his escort.
Impatient to depart however, Park sailed alone, telling his brother that there was no
doubt that he would "acquire a greater name than any ever did". He bore a letter
of credit for two hundred pounds and an introduction to a fellow Scot, Dr. John Laidley,
who ran a slave trading post on the Gambia River and had seen Houghton off on his fatal
journey. As did most Europeans arriving in West Africa , he contracted a febrile illness -
grudgingly called "the seasoning" and remained four months at Dr. Laidley's
entrepot recovering from this. He then set out with an English-speaking Mandingo guide, a
slave called Demba, a horse and two asses, food, an umbrella, a sextant, a compass, a
thermometer, two fowling pieces and two pistols.
Within a short time he was accosted by a native who told him that he was now in the
Kingdom of Walli and would have to pay duty. This scenario was replayed many times as he
moved inland, every petty monarch demanding some sort of bribe. One was pleased with the
gift of the umbrella, repeatedly furling and unfurling it before his court, while another
demanded his prized blue coat, dazzled by its silver buttons. That might call into
question not only the tyrant's greed but also Park's judgment in choosing apparel for
rainforest exploration. In the Kingdom of Bondou he was seized by horsemen and threatened
with death or dismemberment. The king's concubines were fascinated by the color of his
skin and the sharpness of his nose. When he responded in kind by praising the glossiness
of their skin, the ladies replied that "honey-mouth" was not highly regarded. He
was released however, thanks to their entreaties and trekked onward, but was seized once
more at Ludamar, a squalid little village near the desert. Here he was held for two months
and suffered the desertion of his interpreter. He was made to repeatedly dress and
undress, as the villagers had never seen buttons in use. The ladies came to his rescue
again, and after escaping involvement in a tribal war, he pushed on alone - only to be
robbed again within a few days and left to die of thirst. A freak rainstorm saved him and
on July 26, 1796 finally reached the banks if the Niger, in the company of some wandering
nomads who had taken him in. . He described his feelings on reaching "the
long-sought-for majestic Niger, glittering in the morning sun, as broad as the Thames at
Westminster, and flowing slowly to the eastward. I hastened to the brink, and having drunk
of the water, I lifted up my fervent thanks in prayer to the Great Ruler of all things,
for having thus far crowned my endeavours with success".
The King of Segou, however was anxious to get rid of him and gave him 5000 cowrie
shells and a guide as an inducement. The latter, hearing of his struggles to reach the
river, asked him "are there no rivers in your own country, and is not one river much
like another?". They left Segou, heading north toward Timbuktu. He had no money to
hire a canoe and struggled by foot into the marshy and trackless area of the internal
delta of the Niger. On August 25 he was robbed again, stripped of everything but a shirt
and some ragged trousers. He straggled on another three weeks, depending upon the kindness
of strangers for sustenance. At this point he surrendered and joined a passing slave train
heading west for the coast, promising the trader a reward if he arrived. Eighteen months
after leaving he returned to Dr. Laidley's post, having been long given up for dead. Here
he signed on as ship's surgeon on an American slave ship; the ship was bound for Carolina
with 130 slaves, but was diverted to Antigua by bad weather - eleven slaves died on the
crossing. From there he caught a Chesterfield packet and arrived in Falmouth on December
22, 1797. Lionized by the English, he wrote his account of his travels - an instant
best-seller. He was not well however, and returned to Scotland where he married the
daughter of his original sponsor and settled down to the life of a country doctor
While Park was still missing and unheard of, the Africa Association had been busy,
recruiting yet another young explorer. Frederick Hornemann was a German and the son of a
Lutheran pastor. He was a student at the University of Gottingen, where one of his
professors was J.F. Blumenbach, an ethnologist who was working on a classification of
races based upon the shape of the human skull. Blumenbach was a friend of Banks (a large
and eclectic group it seems) and referred his student to London, citing his good mind and
robust constitution. Hornemann was offered 200 pounds a year and, in addition, his mother
was promised an annuity in the event of the young man's death - a first for the armchair
explorers.
Hornemann's route was to be the previously unsuccessful one from Cairo across the
Sahara, and he left London for the Mediterranean and Alexandria just as Napoleon was
moving the Grand Armée on Egypt, in the Summer of 1797. Arriving ahead of the French, he
met a fellow German, Joseph Frendenburgh, who was living life as a converted Moslem.
Hornemann hired him as an assistant and began learning Arabic in preparation for his trip.
Delayed by an outbreak of the plague, his source of funds was cut off when the French
defeated the Mamelukes at the Battle of the Pyramids. Determined and resourceful however,
he made friends with some of the many scientists Napoleon had brought to Egypt with his
army, and , through them, made the acquaintance of Bonaparte himself. The little general
was taken with the young man and provided him with visa and moneys to start his trek; he
even offered to forward any communications to the Africa Association in London, despite
the state of war existing.
In September, 1798, Hornemann and Frendenburgh headed west in a caravan heading for the
Fezzan. For all his preparation the young explorer was a poor mock-Moslem and was soon
discovered when he was seen making sketches of some ancient ruins they passed. When
finally confronted they pled on the basis of Moslem laws of hospitality and read from the
Koran so convincingly that they were accepted as infidels striving to learn. The caravan
reached Murzuk - in the Fezzan - and Hornemann remained there seven months. Frendenburgh
died there and with no caravans heading south, Hornemann turned north to Tripoli, where he
was taken in by Simon Lucas, who we met earlier in our story. From there he wrote to
Banks, telling him " pray sir, do not look upon me as a European but as a real
African and a Moslem."
He was back in Murzuk in the spring of 1800 and from there joined a caravan heading
south, hopefully to the Niger and Timbuktu. He was never heard from again. The African
Association published his journals, as relayed from Tripoli, and presented a copy to
Napoleon - while still at war. Almost twenty years later, other explorers tracking the
area spoke with people who had accompanied him. He did reach the Niger and died there of
dysentery. He had fully transformed himself into a Moslem and shown such compassion and
caring for others that he was regarded as a Marabout - a holy man. There is a real
nobility to this young man's life, cut off before the age of thirty. a beloved stranger.
About the time that Hornemann was dying, Munro Park was suffering from severe
restlessness and wanderlust in Peebles. He wrote to Banks of his lack of satisfaction in
the life of a country doctor and a wish for a more adventurous career. Banks replied that
he would certainly recommend him, but that the British government was now taking an
interest in such explorations, slowing down the process. Quite typically for governmental
initiative, administrative wranglings led to a four year delay as parties rose and fell
and the war with France proceeded apace. In the autumn of 1802, Park was summoned to
London and offered command of a military party, to explore that part of the Niger beyond
where he had gone before and determine where it finally emptied - whether into Saharan
sand or the ocean. Ambition was a stronger pull than a growing practice, a wife and three
children. He told his friend , Sir Walter Scott, that "he would rather brave Africa
and all its horrors than wear out his life in long and toilsome rides over the hills of
Scotland".
More delays ensued and he finally left England in January 1803, sailing from Portsmouth
to Goree, the slave-trading island just off-shore from present-day Dakar. The small
British post there was staffed in large part with condemned criminals living under
appalling conditions: of a garrison of 332 men, 78 had died in the year preceding Park's
arrival. It is no small wonder then that Park had little difficulty recruiting the
authorized 33 men to accompany him inland from the coast. Ragtag they were as they headed
into the rainforest just as the rainy season was about to start. Struggling through the
endless swamps, the woebegone little party did not reach the Niger until late August, two
months behind schedule, by which time three-quarters of the party were dead and all the
pack animals either dead or stolen.
He purchased canoes for the ten remaining men and headed downriver, heroic and
foolishly optimistic. A month later he was in Segue with King Mansong, who had bribed him
with cowrie shells to turn back to the west nine years before. He announced that he was
now going down the river till it met salt water, so that the English traders might, in
time to come, trade directly with the people of the Niger, cutting out the Moorish
middlemen and their caravans across the Sahara through Timbuktu. The chief effect of this
was to alert the Moors, who would understandably do all they could to block him. The king,
anxious as ever to be rid of him, let him pass and even traded him two half-rotten canoes
for some English muskets. Further trading down-river , infuriated the Arabs, and Park, now
aware of the danger, consolidated his shrinking force into one boat, lining its sides with
bullock hides for protection. His pathetic force was now down to four soldiers and three
natives to paddle the boat., itself a makeshift craft assembled from parts of the two
leaky canoes.A local guide, Ahmadi Fatouma, claimed to know the river and was hired to
lead the way. On November 20, 1805 the remnant party took off down the river; like
Hornemann from Murzuk, they were never heard from again.
A year later, reports reached the British consul in Morocco that Park had been seen in
Timbuktu, and four years after that a Bombay newspaper stated that he had perished, this
based upon gossip heard by a pilgrim to Mecca. The outcry at home lead to the hiring of
the Mandingo guide Isaaco, who had been with the party between Goree and the Niger, and
who had forwarded all of Park's journals back to London . Isaaco headed out in 1810 and on
arriving at the Niger two months later found the one man who could answer the questions;
Ahmadi Fatouma. The latter said that Park had realized that he was in unfriendly and
potentially hostile territory and had elected to make a run for it, staying in the middle
of the river on the armed boat for however long it might take them. This, of course,
flaunted the custom of the river calling for repeated stops asking permission to go on and
paying tolls at every juncture. By ignoring tradition and by firing at anyone trying to
stop him he ensured the enmity of all who lived by the river. Despite the tenuous
situation they found themselves in, Park remained confident and in his last letter to his
wife, carried out by the Mandingo guide Isaaco, he wrote: "You may be led to consider
my situation as a great deal worse than it really is ..... the healthy season has
commenced, so there is no danger of sickness .... I think it is not unlikely but I shall
be in England before you receive this .... the sails are now hoisting for our departure to
the coast".
Muno Park's route
The pathetic little boat, dubbed the "Schooner Joliba" came under almost
constant attack. Park and his party responded in kind and gained a reputation as
"Tanakast" or wild beasts, a tale retold for decades by the natives of the area.
They did break free of the Moorish-controlled region - the great bend of the Niger as it
reverses its direction - and headed south into what is present-day northern Nigeria.
Successfully negotiating the high rapids and avoiding the aggressive massed hippos, they
reached the Kingdom of the Yauris, just six hundred miles from the sea. Here he believed
himself to be in friendly country and went ashore, presenting gifts to the king. This
worthy was displeased with the quality of the presents as well as the word that Park and
the English would be returning, placed Fatouma in irons and ordered his troops to attack
the little boat at Bussa Rapids, where the river narrowed markedly. The following day the
Yauri struck at the Joliba as she attempted the rapids, hurling spears, pikes, arrows and
stones. The paddlers were soon killed, while Park and the soldiers attempted to escape by
jumping into the roiling water, where they soon drowned.
In death, Park was celebrated as one of England's great heroes and compared to such
luminaries as Captain Cook and Sir Walter Raleigh. Tennyson's words about Ulysses could
apply to him:
Yet all experience is an arch where thro'
Gleams that untravel'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
For all that, however, Park added very little to the knowledge of the geography of West
Africa, nor did he discover any new trade routes, so desired by the British. All of his
journals and belongings disappeared and were never recovered.
The still energetic African Association took a deep breath, sending out yet another
explorer, Henry Nicholls. Having failed in attempts from the north (Libya), the east
(Cairo) and the west (Gambia), it was proposed that a try should be made from the south.
The site chosen from which to strike inland was from British trading posts on the Gulf of
Guinea. It was not known at this time that the Niger River actually emptied into the Gulf
of Guinea, and as a consequence the starting point was in truth the destination. In the
event, Nicholls sailed from Liverpool on November 1, 1804, bound for Calabar - Park was
still alive and planning his final, fatal descent of the Niger. By February he had sent a
message to the Africa Association describing his health and spirits as both good and no
obstacles apparent. Two months later he was dead of "the African Fever".
By this time, there was a gradual transition in the direction provided to West African
exploration. The driving force of the Africa Association, Sir Joseph Banks was seriously
ill and confined to a wheelchair, although still involved with many governmental and
private committees. At the same time the British Foreign Office and Admiralty chose to
take an increasingly active role. The torch was being passed although the Africa
Association continued to play a role until it was absorbed into the Royal Geographic
Society in 1831. The planning, direction and results of the ongoing exploration remained
largely unchanged.
In 1815, the Colonial Office sent off Major John Peddie of the 12th Foot to further map
the course of the Niger, recruiting volunteers from the Royal Africa Corps. He arrived in
Senegal in November and promptly died of "fever". He was replaced by Captain
Thomas Campbell but the attempt to move inland was hampered by bee attacks and they made
little progress before turning back. Then Campbell died and in turn was replaced by
William Gray and John Dochard, the military surgeon with the group. With a hundred men and
two hundred pack animals they headed inland again. The journey was the usual awful
experience, most of the men dying, Gray captured (and later released) and Dochard and
seven men barely reaching the Niger before being turned back.
The following year Captain James Kingston Tuckey was sent up the Congo to learn whether
the Congo and the Niger entered the ocean together - the later-discovered truth was that
their mouths were nearly nine hundred miles apart. His selection was rather interesting in
that his prior experience consisted of having written four books on Maritime geography and
having surveyed Sidney harbor. His team of fifty-four included a Norwegian botanist and a
gardener from Kew. Their two boats could not enter the mouth of the Congo because of the
currents; changing to small boats, they made it to Yallala Falls and then overland for two
hundred miles until the weakened carriers refused to go further, at which point they
turned back. When they reached the coast and their boats, thirty-five of the men,
including Tuckey, were dead. Little of significance was learned.
The year after that a letter from a young naval officer, W.H. Smyth, to Admiral Penrose
was passed on to John Barrow, Second Secretary of the Admiralty. Barrow, who served in
that post for forty years is best remembered as the man responsible for sending many naval
ships to the high Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage. The letter suggested that the
northern route across the Sahara was still a better approach to the heart of West Africa
than the recent fetid and pestilent ones of recent years. Barrow agreed and was seconded
in this by Hanmer Warrington, a Falstaffian character who was British consul in Tripoli
for thirty-two years. Once again, an unusual team was chosen for the endeavour; The leader
was an introverted and careless young surgeon by the name of Joseph Ritchie. He was
accompanied by a twenty-three year old naval officer, George Lyon and John Belford, a
shipwright who was to build a boat if they ever reached the Niger. The Colonial Office
gave them two thousand pounds for supplies and most of this went for such articles as a
load of corks to preserve insects on, two chests of arsenic and six hundred pounds of
lead.
On March 18, 1818, they were received by the Bashaw of Tripoli and told they could head
south with the Bey of Fezzan as part of a slave-raiding caravan. Ritchie's instructions
from Lord Bathhurst were to "proceed under proper protection to Timbuktoo .... and
collect all possible information as to the further course of the Niger ....". Already
there was a subtle shift from the river itself to the important trading post at its
northern bend. Increasingly, the raison d'etre for sending young men to an inhospitable
and dangerous locale was the possibility of commercial exploitation rather than the
accumulation of knowledge, as originally proposed by the prototype "Fortnightly
Club". Interestingly, Ritchie, who was a good friend of John Keats, did take a copy
of the poet's Endymion with him to cast into the middle of the Sahara as a romantic
gesture.
Their first destination was the Fezzan capital of Murzuk, which Hornemann had visited
twenty years before. It was reputed for its unhealthy climate and soon after arriving
there Lyon had dysentery, Bedford was stone-deaf and Ritchie had a biliary fever with
delirium. Without funds, they were reduced to beggary and discovered that the local
inhabitants were forbidden to trade with them. Within six months Ritchie was dead, Bedford
was able to utilize his carpentry skills in making a coffin for his leader, and the two
survivors beat a retreat back to Tripoli. The only information brought back by Lyons in
return for their suffering was wrong; he reported that the Niger flowed into Lake Chad and
from there on to the Nile.
Acting on this misinformation, Barrow recruited an even more dysfunctional team in 1820
and sent them southward with the government's blessing. Walter Oudney was yet another
Scottish surgeon, small, self-effacing and already tubercular. He, in turn, recruited his
neighbor, Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton, a naval hero and a fine figure of a man. The third
member of the team was Lieutenant Dixon Denham, an army hero and instructor at Sandhurst.
He was also priggish and small-minded while Clapperton was over-proud and stubborn and
Oudney overmatched by both. Ill will was apparent before they were well into the desert,
with the English Denham in constant conflict with the two Scots. Soon Denham and
Clapperton were not speaking and both were sending long and scurrilous messages back to
London regarding the other. These reports were carried slowly back across the Sahara by
messengers always sent in pairs as it was assumed one would perish on the way. The most
damaging of these was the report by Denham that he suspected Clapperton of homosexuality,
a career-ending innuendo in those days.
Despite this virulent enmity, they remained in the interior for nearly four years
during which time they did reach Lake Chad - the first Europeans to do so. For over two
years they ranged widely around the great inland lake and to the south and west of there
in an attempt to define the course of the Niger and where it emptied, an ultimately futile
quest. During the course of these peregrinations Oudney died, Clapperton was rebuffed by
the Sultan of Sokoto and Denham captured by Hausa warriors, escaping only after being
stripped naked and losing all his equipment and notes. The two antagonistic, surviving
explorers continued to live apart, communicating only by letter. They did agree, however,
that it was time to return across the Sahara to Tripoli, and in September, 1824 they
headed north. After an agonizing five month trek they reached Tripoli, where both
presented their version of the facts of the expedition. Denham was a public idol for a
short time after which he was honored with the post of governor of Sierra Leone, where he
died of "fever" at the age of forty-three. Clapperton recovered from his malaria
and was anxious to resume the search for the course of the Niger, but in the meantime
another rival for African glory appeared on the scene.
Yet another Scotsman, Major Alexander Gordon Laing, presented himself as a candidate
for Nigerian heroism. Precocious and clever, he was aide-de-camp to General Charles
Macarthy in West Africa. Consumed with ambition, he pulled strings and was given
permission to attempt to reach the Niger from Sierra Leone. In 1822, while Denham and
Clapperton were fulminating against each other by the shores of Lake Chad, he made his
attempt. This try was unsuccessful, but he was so caught up in the excitement of the chase
that he overleaped his senior commander to seek permission for another exploration. The
bypassed General Turner fired off a spiteful letter to Lord Bathhurst in response: "I
would not fulfill my duty either to your Lordship or to the Service, were I not to
characterize as unwise, unofficerlike and unmanly, the conduct of Captain Gordon Laing in
this country ...... I humbly beg yor Lordship, in the name of the Regiment, that he may be
removed from it - and that we may not be subject to the mortification of his calling us
Brother Officers."
Despite this, Laing's persistence was rewarded, he was given leave-of-absence and
directed to head for Tripoli with the goal of reaching Timbuktu and discovering the
drainage of the Niger. When he arrived, the comic-opera consul Warrington was engaged in a
diplomatic war with the newly appointed French consul Joseph-Louis Rousseau, made worse by
the fact that Rousseau's son was courting Warrington's daughter, a Libyan Romeo and
Juliet. Laing's appearance was a godsend, Warrington pushed his compliant daughter in the
Scot's direction and two months later they were married. The day after the unconsummated
marriage, Laing left for his trans-Saharan trip to immortality.
Rather than the route used by Clapperton and Denham, his, in the company of Sheikh
Babani, headed more westerly, two thousand miles across the heart of the great desert
occupied chiefly by lawless Tuaregs living off plundered caravans. It took Laing more than
a year to reach Timbuktu and a more difficult land voyage would be hard to imagine. His
spirits were high though and he hoped to reach the fabled city before Clapperton could
"snatch the cup from my lips".He later said that " if the termination of
the Niger is Clapperton's object, "he might as well have stayed home, for it is
destined for me". Six months after leaving his virgin bride, he reached In Salah, in
present-day Algeria, and there found merchants who had been waiting as long as ten months
to go south, for fear of the marauding Tuaregs. For Laing, racing against Clapperton in
his mind, this delay was intolerable, and he announced that he would proceed across the
rocky Tanezrouft alone. The merchants were shamed by the driven young man, agreed to go
and on January 9, 1826 the caravan left, with three hundred camels and one hundred fifty
armed men. In addition to the fame he so desperately coveted, a 10,000 franc prize was
announced , earlier in the year, by the Geographical Society of Paris for the first person
to reach Timbuktu and return to Europe alive. Laing knew of this and was also aware that
Clapperton was on the march again, attempting to reach Timbuktu from the south. The race
was on!
The Tripoli Route 
On January 26 Laing sent an optimistic letter to London, saying that the caravan had
met with friendly Tuaregs and that "... my prospects are bright and expectations
sanguine." Unfortunately, at just this time they were joined by twenty heavily-armed
Ahaggar Tuaregs, who were accepted into the caravan. Three days later, at Wadi Ahnet where
they had stopped overnight, the new arrivals attacked Laing and his party in their tents
at night. Two were killed and Laing was dragged from his tent and hacked at with swords,
being left for dead. Amazingly, he survived and joined by three companions who had escaped
into the desert in the confusion, continued on another four hundred miles across the
desert till reaching the camp of a friendly Arab chieftain. He remained here for three
months, while recuperating. During this time he sent a report to Warrington which did not
reach Tripoli for two years; in it he detailed his wounds. There were twenty-four in all
including a musket ball wound that had fractured his hip and grazed his spine, a broken
jaw and partial amputation of his left ear, five cuts on his right hand to the level of
the bone, broken forearm bones, long lacerations of both legs and his left arm and a
broken wrist. In addition, he began to act in a somewhat irrational manner, adding in a
note that " I shall do more than has ever been done before and shall show myself to
be what I have ever considered myself, a man of enterprise and genius ".
While recovering a mysterious epidemic swept through the camp, killing all his
remaining companions and the friendly chief with half of his village. Despite this, Laing
was more determined than ever to push on and with a party of the disease survivors headed
south in July and finally reached Timbuktu on August thirteenth, a little over a year
after leaving his virgin bride. The timing was poor, as a Fulani zealot Seku Hamadu was in
the process of wresting control of the city from the Tuaregs in a holy war. The remaining
merchants however greeted him warmly and he remained for five weeks, talking with scholars
and examining records. The two story mud house where he lived is still standing to this
day. More bad news arose however, as Hamadu's overlord, Sultan Bello of Sokoto sent word
that Europeans were not to be allowed in the Sudan.
Laing was told that he must leave at once and he sent one final message to Warrington
on September 26, stating that he was heading southwest toward Segou but saying almost
nothing about Timbuktu, preferring to bring his observations with him in his journal. No
word was heard from him again. His small party made it no further than Sahab, thirty miles
to the north where Sheikh Labeida, his guide, turned on him and killed him. Nothing was
known of his death or the manner of it, beyond rumor, for eighty-five years. In 1910 a
French team headed by Bonnel de Meziere was sent to the area acting on information
provided by an elderly nephew of the Sheikh; skeletal remains were dug up and reported by
examining doctors as consistent with those of a European adult.
There was one final surpassing consequence of Laing's epic trip. His journal was never
recovered but in 1828 the Paris newspaper l'Etoile reported that Laing was dead, based
upon a letter unsigned but sent from Sukhara, Tripoli, the name of the country home of
Consul Rousseau, Warrington's foe and the father of the young man who had courted Emma
before Laing's arrival. The source of his information was never disclosed but Warrington
was convinced that Rousseau had obtained the journal and that furthermore the French had
connived in the assassination. Warrington blamed the Bashaw as well, along with his
French-educated minister, Hassan D'Ghies, and lowered the British flag and boycotted the
Bashaw. The Royal Navy's Major James Frazer was sent to investigate and was confronted by
the news that D'Ghies had confessed and then fled Tripoli with the help of the American
consulate. The Bashaw read the so-called confession to the assembled diplomatic corps,
Warrington re-hoisted the flag and Rousseau escaped to France. In Paris it became a matter
of national honor and a French naval squadron was dispatched in 1830, under the command of
Admiral Rosamel, to force a retraction of the charges. This he accomplished , following
which the English formally withdrew their support of the Bashaw. Without the support of
the competing powers and their navies, the Bashaw was fatally weakened and overthrown in
1835, Tripoli returning to Turkish rule. One final consequence was that the suspicious
Turks would permit no further exploration of Africa from this area.
As Laing was struggling south across the Sahara to Timbuktu and his death, Clapperton
and his assistant and manservant John Lander were ascending the Niger north from the Gulf
of Guinea. Many of the party were already dying of malaria but like all the intrepid and
doomed explorers before him, Clapperton pushed on, finally reaching Bussa, where Park was
ambushed. Their course beyond was slowed by the constant demands of petty village
chieftains and occasional romantic dalliances. In Wawa Clapperton was pursued by a rich
widow who he described in his journal as a "walking water-butt". Lander was even
more explicit, calling her a "moving world of flesh, puffing and blowing like a
blacksmith's bellows".
By mid-August, as Laing was entering Timbuktu, Clapperton was in Kano but by now sick
again and unable to travel. After five weeks of recovery, it was decided that he would
push on alone, leaving Lander to guard their by-now meager possessions. The trek was the
usual nightmare of misdirection, fatigue and illness culminating in the hostile reception
he received from Sultan Bello, the same despot who had ordered Laing out of Timbuktu a
month earlier. He was not permitted to go further, although for a while the situation
seemed better: his health improved, the Sultan seemed friendlier and Lander rejoined him.
Warfare intervened however, and as the Sultan fled Kano he took the two Englishmen with
him. Clapperton once again sickened, deteriorated and weakened and finally died in
Lander's arms on April 13, 1827.
Lander, the erstwhile servant and now quite alone, managed to make his way back to
their starting point in six months of illness, delay and trickery, reaching the gulf in
November, 1827 and London three months later. A modest hero, he retired to Cornwall and
quiet, but as so many before him, was lured back to Africa three years later and with his
brother finally made the ascent of the Niger from its mouth, completing the mapping of its
course, started nearly forty years earlier.
Timbuktu remained a mystery to Europe however, but the man who would achieve success
was already preparing himself. Rene Caillie was the orphaned son of a baker apprenticed to
the local cobbler. At the age of sixteen however, impassioned by his reading of Robinson
Crusoe, he walked away with fifty francs in his pocket and a new pair of shoes. His
wanderings took him to West Africa and then the West Indies, where he read Mungo Park's
Travels and realized what he would do with his life. He returned to France, learned Arabic
and then pestered the directors of a French team that was sent in relief of a British
group missing east of Dakar. He was allowed to join them and returned two years later,
with malaria but alive and with renewed determination. He next spent a year living as a
Muslim ascetic in the Sahara, returning to France to earn a little more money and then
heading back to Africa. For another year he hardened himself, learned native languages,
accumulated a small nest-egg and then believed himself ready. He would travel alone and
inconspicuously, unknown to the world. He became Abd Allahi and joined a caravan heading
east from Sierra Leone. It was March, 1827; Laing had been beheaded six months before and
Clapperton would die in a month.
Three months later he had reached the Niger, by this time barefoot and devastated by
malaria and dysentery. Scurvy was to follow, but he was fortunately nursed back to health
by an old crone who befriended him. After six weeks of a red-wood extract he improved and
slowly made his way to Djenne, a picturesque trading city south of Timbuktu, where he
first heard rumors of Laing's death. At Djenne he sold what he had left and boarded a boat
heading five hundred miles down river to Timbuktu's port of Kabara. Twice stopped by river
pirates, the boatmen hid Caillie beneath mats, paid tribute and sailed on. On April 25,
1828, they reached Kabara and Caillee walked the few remaining miles to Timbuktu.; he had
been traveling, alone and light, for exactly one year.
What he found did not meet his expectations; he described it as a "mass of
ill-looking houses built of mud". Nonetheless, he did remain there ten days, taking
notes and being shown the site where Laing was executed. His dwelling place, like Laing's
is still present today, marked by a small plaque. He seized the first opportunity to leave
though and headed north with a slave and gold caravan into the Sahara. It was the hottest
time of the year and two thousand miles with little water and fewer friends, but three
months later arrived in Tangier where the French consul slipped him on a boat bound for
Toulon.
His return lead to little interest, and it was only when the British questioned the
truth of his reports that national pride led the French to award him a gold medal and a
pension of three thousand francs a year. This pension was discontinued in 1833, amid
continuing doubts and he died in 1838 at the age of thirty-nine, penniless and depressed.
Years later, other explorers were shown the house where he had lived in Timbuktu and the
unmourned hero was vindicated.
The succeeding years of the nineteenth century saw much warfare and jockeying by the
British and French for control of West Africa, the English because of its trade importance
and the French as a military exercise. The explorers lived on, if faintly, in the history
books. Yet the story is a fascinating mixture of incredible bravery, egocentric drive,
unbelievable foolhardiness and imperial folly. All initiated by an eighteenth century
Fortnightly Club.
