A Book of Discovery Part 32

Parry describes the laborious journey: "Being 'rigged' for travelling," he says, "we breakfasted upon warm cocoa and biscuit, and after stowing the things in the boats we set off on our day's journey, and usually travelled about five and a half hours, then stopped an hour to dine, and again travelled five or six hours. After this we halted for the night as we called it, though it was usually early in the morning, selecting the largest surface of ice we happened to be near for hauling the boats on. The boats were placed close alongside each other, and the sails supported by bamboo masts placed over them as awnings. Every man then put on dry socks and fur boots and went to supper. Most of the officers and men then smoked their pipes, which served to dry the awnings. We then concluded our day with prayers and, having put on our fur dresses, lay down to sleep," alone in the great ice desert. Progress was slow and very tedious. One day it took them four hours to cover half a mile. On 1st July they were still labouring forward; a foot of soft snow on the ground made travelling very exhausting. Some of the hummocks of ice were as much as twenty-five feet above sea-level; nothing was to be seen but ice and sky, both often hidden by dense fog. Still the explorers pushed on, Parry and Ross leading the way and the men dragging the boat-sledges after. July 12th was a brilliant day, with clear sky overhead--"an absolute luxury." For another fortnight they persevered, and on 23rd July they reached their farthest point north. It was a warm, pleasant day, with the thermometer at thirty-six in the shade; they were a hundred and seventy-two miles from Spitzbergen, where the _Hecla_ lay at anchor.

"Our ensigns and pendants were displayed during the day, and severely as we regretted not having been able to hoist the British flag in the highest lat.i.tude to which we had aspired, we shall perhaps be excused in having felt some little pride in being the bearers of it to a parallel considerably beyond that mentioned in any other well-authenticated record." On 27th July they reluctantly turned to the south, and on 21st August they arrived on board the _Hecla_ after an absence of sixty-one days, every one of the party being in good health. Soon after they sailed for England, and by a strange coincidence arrived in London at the same time as Franklin.

Many an attempt was yet to be made to reach the North Pole, till at last it was discovered by Peary, an American, in 1909.

CHAPTER LV

THE SEARCH FOR TIMBUKTU

It is a relief to turn from the icy north to the tropical climate of Central Africa, where Mungo Park had disappeared in 1805. The mystery of Timbuktu and the Niger remained unsolved, though more than one expedition had left the coast of Africa for the "mystic city" lying "deep in that lion-haunted inland." Notwithstanding disaster, death, and defeat, a new expedition set forth from Tripoli to cross the great Sahara Desert. It was under Major Denham, Lieutenant Clapperton, and Dr. Oudney. They left Tripoli in March 1822. "We were the first English travellers," says Denham, "who had determined to travel in our real character as Britons and Christians, and to wear our English dress: the b.u.t.tons on our waistcoats and our watches caused the greatest astonishment." It was the end of November before they were ready to leave the frontier on their great desert journey. The long enforced stay in this unhealthy border town had undermined their health; fever had reduced Denham, Dr. Oudney was suffering from cough and pains in his chest, Clapperton was s.h.i.+vering with ague--a state of health "ill-calculated for undertaking a long and tedious journey." A long escort of men and camels accompanied them into the merciless desert, with its burning heat and drifting sands--"the Sea of Sahara" as the old cartographer calls it. December found them still slowly advancing over the billowy sand, deeply impressed and horrified at the number of slave skeletons that lay about the wind-swept desert. The new year brought little relief. "No wood, no water," occurs constantly in Denham's journal. "Desert as yesterday; high sandhills." Still they persevered, until, on 4th February 1823, they were rewarded by seeing a sheet of water, "the great Lake Tchad, glowing with the golden rays of the sun in its strength." Was this, after all, the source of the Niger? Its low sh.o.r.es were surrounded with reedy marshes and clumps of white water-lilies, there were flocks of wild ducks and geese, birds with beautiful plumage were feeding on the margin of the lake, pelicans, cranes, immense white spoonbills, yellow-legged plover--all were dwelling undisturbed in this peaceful spot. And this most remarkable lake lay eight hundred feet above the Atlantic, between the watersheds of Nile, Niger, and Congo.

But Lake Tchad was not their goal; they must push on over new country where no European had been before. A fortnight later they reached Kukawa, the capital of Bornu, once a great Mohammedan empire. "We were about to become acquainted with a people who had never seen or scarcely heard of a European," says Denham, "and to tread on ground, the knowledge and true situation of which had hitherto been wholly unknown.

We advanced towards the town of Kuka in a most interesting state of uncertainty, whether we should find its chief at the head of thousands, or be received by him under a tree, surrounded by a few naked slaves."

Their doubts were soon set at rest by the sight of several thousand cavalry, drawn up in line. They were received by an Arab general, "a negro of n.o.ble aspect, dressed in a figured silk robe and mounted on a beautiful horse." They had pa.s.sed from the region of hidden huts to one of great walled cities, from the naked pagan to the cultivated follower of Mohammed, from superst.i.tion to mosques and schools, from ignorance to knowledge. The Sheikh, who received the travellers in a small room with armed negroes on either side, asked the reason of their long and painful journey across the desert. "To see the country,"

answered the Englishmen, "and to give an account of its inhabitants, produce, and appearance, as our sultan was desirous of knowing every part of the globe."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAJOR DENHAM AND HIS PARTY RECEIVED BY THE SHEIKH OF BORNU. From a drawing by Major Denham.]

The Sheikh's hospitality was overwhelming; he had huts built for them, "which," says Denham, "were so crowded with visitors that we had not a moment's peace, and the heat was insufferable." He sent presents of bullocks, camel-loads of wheat and rice, leather skins of b.u.t.ter, jars, and honey. The market of Kuka was famous. It was attended by some fifteen thousand persons from all parts, and the produce sold there was astonis.h.i.+ng. Here Clapperton and Dr. Oudney stayed all through the summer months, for both were ill, and Oudney was growing rapidly worse. Denham meanwhile went off on exploring expeditions in the neighbourhood.

On 14th December, Clapperton and Oudney left the friendly Sheikh and made their way to Kano. But the rough travelling proved too much for Oudney; each day found him weaker, but he valiantly journeyed on. On 12th January he ordered the camels to be loaded as usual, and he was dressed by Clapperton, but he was too ill to be lifted on to his camel, and a few hours later he died.

Clapperton was now alone "amid a strange people" in a land "hitherto never trodden by European foot," and very ill himself. But he reached Kano, the famous trading centre of the Haussas, containing some forty thousand inhabitants. Here again the market impressed him deeply, so full was it of cosmopolitan articles from far-distant lands. After a month's stay at Kano, now the capital of the northern province of Nigeria of that name, he set out for Sokoto, though very ill and weak at the time. He was a.s.sured of kind treatment by the Sultan. He arrived on 16th March, and "to impress them with my official importance I arrayed myself in my lieutenant's coat trimmed with gold lace, white trousers, and silk stockings, and, to complete my finery, I wore Turkish slippers and a turban." Crowds collected on his arrival, and he was conducted to the Sultan, who questioned him closely about Europe.

"I laid before him a present in the name of His Majesty the King of England, consisting of two new blunderbusses, an embroidered jacket, some scarlet breeches, cloves and cinnamon, gunpowder, razors, looking-gla.s.ses, snuff-boxes, and compa.s.ses."

"Everything is wonderful!" exclaimed the Sultan; "but you are the greatest curiosity of all! What can I give that is acceptable to the King of England?"

"Co-operate with His Majesty in putting a stop to the slave trade,"

was Clapperton's answer.

"What, have you no slaves in England?" The Englishman replied, "No!"

to which the Sultan answered: "G.o.d is great; you are a beautiful people." But when Clapperton asked for leave in order to solve the mystery of the Niger, the Sultan refused, and he was obliged to return to Kuka, where he arrived on 8th July. A week later he was joined by Denham. "It was nearly eight months since we had separated," says Denham, "and I went immediately to the hut where he was lodged; but so satisfied was I that the sunburnt, sickly person that lay extended on the floor, rolled in a dark-blue s.h.i.+rt, was not my companion, that I was about to leave the place, when he convinced me of my error by calling me by my name. Our meeting was a melancholy one, for he had buried his companion. Notwithstanding the state of weakness in which I found Captain Clapperton, he yet spoke of returning to Sudan after the rains." But this was not to be, and a month later we find the two explorers turning homewards to Tripoli, where they arrived at the end of January.

But, with all his long travelling in Africa, Clapperton had not seen the Niger, and, although the effects of his fever had not worn away, he spent but two months in England before he was off again. This time he sailed to the Gulf of Guinea, and from a place on the coast near the modern Lagos he started by a new and untried route to reach the interior of the great Dark Continent. It was September 1825 when he left the coast with his companions. Before the month was over, the other Europeans had died from the pestilential climate of Nigeria, and Clapperton, alone with his faithful servant, Richard Lander, pushed on. At last he saw the great Niger near the spot where Mungo Park and his companions had perished. At Bussa they made out the tragic story of his end. They had descended the river from Timbuktu to Bussa, when the boat struck upon some rocks. Natives from the banks shot at them with arrows; the white men then, seeing all was lost, jumped into the river and were drowned. The Niger claimed its explorer in the end, and the words of Mungo Park must have occurred to Clapperton as he stood and watched: "Though I myself were half-dead, I would still persevere; and if I could not succeed in the object of my journey, I would at least die on the Niger."

From Bussa, Clapperton made his way to Kano and Sokoto; but on 13th April 1827, broken down by fever, he died in the arms of his faithful servant. With his master's papers and journal, Lander made his way home, thus establis.h.i.+ng for the first time a direct connection between Benin and Tripoli, the west coast and the north.

Still the mouth of the Niger had not been found. This discovery was reserved for this very Richard Lander and his brother John.

Just a year after the death of Clapperton a young Frenchman, Rene Caille, tempted by the offer of ten thousand francs offered by the French Geographical Society for the first traveller who should reach that mysterious city, entered Timbuktu 20th April 1829, after a year's journey from Sierra Leone. And from his pen we get the first direct account of the once important city. "At length," he says, "we arrived safely at Timbuktu, just as the sun was touching the horizon. I now saw this capital of the Sudan, to reach which had so long been the object of my wishes. To G.o.d alone did I confide my joy. I looked around and found that the sight before me did not answer my expectations.

I had formed a totally different idea of the grandeur and wealth of it. The city presented nothing but a ma.s.s of ill-looking houses, built of earth. Nothing was to be seen in all directions but immense plains of quicksand of a yellowish white colour. The sky was a pale red as far as the horizon, all nature wore a dreary aspect, and the most profound silence prevailed: not even the warbling of a bird was to be heard. The heat was oppressive; not a breath of air freshened the atmosphere. This mysterious city, which has been the object of curiosity for many ages, and of whose civilisation, population, and trade with the Sudan such exaggerated notions have prevailed, is situated in an immense plain of white sand, having no vegetation but stunted trees and shrubs, and has no other resources save its trade in salt."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST EUROPEAN PICTURE OF TIMBUKTU. From a drawing in Caille's _Tomboctou_, 1829.]

It is curious to note what a burst of interest was aroused in England at this time with regard to Timbuktu. Thackeray wrote in 1829--

"In Africa (a quarter of the world) Men's skins are black, their hair is crisp and curl'd; And somewhere there, unknown to public view, A mighty city lies, called Timbuktu."

while the same year Tennyson's poem on Timbuktu won for him the prize at Cambridge University for the best poem of the year.

CHAPTER LVI

RICHARD AND JOHN LANDER DISCOVER THE MOUTH OF THE NIGER

Lander, the "faithful attendant of the late Captain Clapperton," as he is called in his instructions, was burning to be off again to explore further the mysterious Niger. No pecuniary reward was to be his; he was a poor man, and just for the love of exploring the unknown he started off. He had inspired his brother with a desire to solve the great mystery; so on 22nd February 1830 the two brothers arrived at Cape Coast Castle and made their way to Bussa, which place they entered on 18th June. Sitting on a rock overlooking the spot where Mungo Park had perished, the brothers resolved to "set at rest for ever the great question of the course and termination of the great Niger."

It was 20th September before preparations were completed for the eventful voyage from Bussa to the mouth of the Niger. For provisions they took three large bags of corn and one of beans, a couple of fowls, and two sheep to last a month, while the king added rice, honey, onions, and one hundred pounds of vegetable b.u.t.ter. Then in two native canoes the Landers embarked on the great river, the "Dark Water" as it was more often called, while the crowds who came down to the riverside to bid them farewell knelt with uplifted hands, imploring for the explorers the protection of Allah and their prophet. It was indeed a perilous undertaking; sunken reefs were an ever-present danger, while the swift current ran them dangerously near many jagged rocks.

For nearly a month they paddled onward with their native guides in anxiety and suspense, never knowing what an hour might bring forth.

On 7th October a curious scene took place when the King of the Dark Water came forth in all his pomp and glory to see the white strangers who were paddling down the great river. Waiting under the shade of a tree, for the morning was very hot, the Landers observed a large canoe paddled by twenty young black men singing as they rowed. In the centre of the boat a mat awning was erected: in the bows sat four little boys "clad with neatness and propriety," while in the stern sat musicians with drums and trumpets. Presently the king stepped forth.

He was coal black, dressed in an Arab cloak, Haussa trousers, and a cap of red cloth, while two pretty little boys about ten years of age, acting as pages, followed him, each bearing a cow's tail in his hand to brush away flies and other insects. Six wives, jet black girls in neat country caps edged with red silk, accompanied him. To make some impression on this pompous king, Lander hoisted the "Union flag."

"When unfurled and waving in the wind, it looked extremely pretty, and it made our hearts glow with pride and enthusiasm as we looked at the solitary little banner. I put on an old naval uniform coat, and my brother dressed himself in as grotesque and gaudy a manner as our resources would afford; our eight attendants also put on new white Mohammedan robes." Other canoes joined the royal procession and the little flotilla moved down the river. "Never did the British flag lead so extraordinary a squadron," remarks Lander. As the King of the Dark Water stepped on sh.o.r.e the Englishmen fired a salute, which frightened him not a little till the honour was explained. Having now exchanged their two canoes for one of a larger size, they continued their journey down the river.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RICHARD AND JOHN LANDER PADDLING DOWN THE NIGER. From a drawing in the account of Lander's _Travels_, 1835.]

On 25th October they found the waters of the Niger were joined by another large river known to-day as the Benue, the Mother of Waters, flowing in from the east. After this the banks of the river seemed to grow hilly, and villages were few and far between. "Our canoe pa.s.sed smoothly along the Niger, and everything was silent and solitary; no sound could be distinguished save our own voices and the plas.h.i.+ng of the paddles with their echoes; the song of birds was not heard, nor could any animal whatever be seen; the banks seemed to be entirely deserted, and the magnificent Niger to be slumbering in its own grandeur."

"One can imagine the feelings," says a modern writer, "in such circ.u.mstances of the brothers, drifting they knew not whither, in intolerable silence and loneliness on the bosom of a river which had caused the death of so many men who had endeavoured to wrest from it its secret." Two days later a large village appeared, and suddenly a cry rang through the air: "Holloa, you Englishmen! You come here!"

It came from a "little squinting fellow" dressed in an English soldier's jacket, a messenger from the Chief of Bonney on the coast, buying slaves for his master. He had picked up a smattering of English from the Liverpool trading s.h.i.+ps which came to Bonney for palm-oil from the river. There was no longer any doubt that the mouth of the Niger was not far off, and that the many-mouthed delta was well known to Europeans under the name of the "Oil Rivers" flowing into the Bight of Benin.

Lander pushed on till he had paddled down the Bra.s.s River, as one of the many branches was called, when he heard "the welcome sound of the surf on the beach."

The mystery of the Niger, after a lapse of two thousand five hundred years since its existence had been recorded by Herodotus, was solved at last.

CHAPTER LVII

ROSS DISCOVERS THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE

The first attempt to discover the North-West Pa.s.sage by means of steam instead of sail was made by Captain Ross, who, since his expedition in 1819, had been burning to set off again for the Arctic regions.

The reward of 20,000 pounds held out to the discoverer of a north-west pa.s.sage had been repealed, but an old friend, Felix Booth, decided to finance Ross, the Government having refused. "After examining various steams.h.i.+ps advertised for sale," says Ross, "I purchased the _Victory_, which had been once employed as a packet." With food and fuel for one thousand days, and accompanied by his nephew, James Ross, who had been with Parry on his recent Polar voyage, he left England the end of May 1829, not to return for many a long year. Disasters soon began. The _Victory_ began to leak, her engines were defective, and there was nothing for it but to heave up her paddles and trust to sail. Sailing to the northward, they found the sea smooth and the weather so warm that they could dine without a fire and with the skylights off. Entering Lancaster Sound, they sailed up Prince Regent's Inlet. They soon discovered the spot where the _Fury_ had been wrecked four years before and abandoned by Captain Parry with whom was James Ross, who now found the stores which had been safely hidden on that occasion. As they made their way up the inlet, strong currents and vast ma.s.ses of ice hard and solid as granite more than once threatened them with destruction.

"Imagine," says Captain Ross, "these mountains hurled through a narrow strait by a rapid tide, meeting with the noise of thunder, breaking from each other's precipices huge fragments, till, losing their former equilibrium, they fall over headlong, lifting the sea around in breakers and whirling it in eddies."

Escaping these perils, Ross entered a fine harbour. Here he landed, hoisted the colours, and took possession of the new land he had found, and, drinking the King's health, called the land Boothia, after his patron. For the next two months, August and September, he carefully explored the coast of this newly discovered Boothia for some three hundred miles, naming points and capes and islands after friends at home and on board. Heavy squalls of snow and ever-thickening ice pointed out the necessity of winter quarters, and 1st October found the _Victory_ imprisoned by thick immovable ice. "The prison door was shut upon us for the first time," says Ross sadly. "Nothing was to be seen but one dazzling, monotonous extent of snow. It was indeed a dull prospect. Amid all its brilliancy, this land of ice and snow has ever been, and ever will be, a dull, dreary, heart-sinking, monotonous waste, under the influence of which the very mind is paralysed. Nothing moves and nothing changes, but all is for ever the same--cheerless, cold, and still."

The explorers little thought that this was to be their home for the next three years. They spent a fairly cheerful Christmas with mince pies and "iced cherry brandy" taken from the stores of the _Fury_, and early in 1830 the monotony was broken by the appearance of Eskimos.