Chapter XII: Great Explorers (1)

The colonization of Africa in all its earlier stages is so closely
akin to exploration, that in several of the preceding chapters I
have seemed to deal rather with geographical discoveries than with
political settlement. But as there is much exploring work which has
not been directly connected with colonization (just as all
missionary work has not resulted in the foundation of European
states in Africa, nor have measures for the suppression of the slave
trade invariably been followed by annexation) I think it better to
devote a chapter to the enumeration of great explorers whose work
has proved to be an indirect cause of the ultimate European control
now established over nearly all Africa.

The first explorers known to history, though not, unfortunately,
mentioned by name, were those Phoenicians despatched by the Egyptian
Pharaoh, Niku II (son of Psammetik), about 600 (603-599) B.C. to
circumnavigate Africa. We receive our knowledge of them through
Herodotos, who derived his information from Egypt; but the account
given of the voyage bears the stamp of veracity and probability, and
seemed to be confirmed by some remarkable inscriptions on scarabs
discovered by French explorers of Egyptian monuments. These,
however, have been declared to be forgeries[163].

Cambyses, the Persian king who invaded Egypt in 525 B.C., is said to
have lost his life in endeavouring to trace the course of the Nile,
he and his army having disappeared in the deserts of Upper Nubia.
About 520 B.C. Hanno the Carthaginian, as already related in Chapter
II, conducted an expedition round the West coast of Africa, which
penetrated about as far south as the confines of Liberia.

The Greek Herodotos journeyed in Egypt and in the Cyrenaica about
450 B.C. Eratosthenes, a Greek, born at Kurene in 276 B.C., became
the librarian of one of the Ptolemies at Alexandria, and, although
he derived much of his information about the valley of the Nile from
other travellers, still he conducted a certain amount of exploration
himself. Polybius, a Greek, born in 204 B.C., explored much of the
North coast of Africa in the service of the Romans about 140 years
before the Christian Era.

The celebrated Strabo flourished during the reign of Augustus Cæsar,
and wrote a great work on geography about the year 19 A.C. He
accompanied the Roman governor Ælius Gallus on a journey up the Nile
as far as Philæ, though his knowledge of the Cyrenaica was limited
to a voyage along the coast. Nero sent two centurions (according to
Pliny) with orders to ascend the Nile and discover its course.
Thanks to recommendations from the king of Ethiopia, they were
passed on from tribe to tribe, and apparently ascended the Nile as
far as its junction with the Sobat, where they were stopped by
immense masses of floating vegetation (the _sudd_).

Though Pliny the Elder[164] does not appear to have visited Africa,
or at any rate to have carried his explorations farther than a trip
to Alexandria and visits to the ports along the Barbary coast, he
nevertheless did much to collect and edit the geographical knowledge
of the day; and has thus transmitted to our knowledge the slender
information which the Romans possessed of interior Africa during the
early years of the Empire. Pliny is remarkable for having handed
down to us the first mention of the Niger, which he calls Nigir or
Nigris and somewhat confounds with the humbler river Draa to the
south of Morocco.

About the middle of the second century of the Christian Era there
flourished in Egypt the famous geographer called Claudius Ptolemæus,
better known to us as ‘Ptolemy.’ Though he also was mainly a
compiler and owed much of his information to the works on geography
published by his predecessor or contemporary, Marinus of Tyre, yet
it seems probable that he travelled up the Nile for a certain
distance, and visited the African coasts along the Red Sea and the
Mediterranean. At any rate he published the most extended account of
African geography given by any classical writer. His accounts of the
Nile lakes, of the East African coast and of the Sahara Desert are
the nearest approach to actuality of any geographer before the
Muhammadan epoch.

With the decline of the Roman Empire came a cessation of
geographical exploration, and there was no revival until the
Muhammadan invaders of Africa had attained sufficient civilization
to record their journeys and observations. Masudi and Ibn Haukal in
the 10th century, and other Arab travellers whose wanderings have
not been recorded, furnished from their journeys information
embodied in the map of Idris or Edrisi drawn up by a Sicilian
Muhammadan geographer for Count Robert of Sicily in the 12th
century. By these journeys the first definite and reliable
information about the geography of Africa south of the Sahara, and
along the East coast to Zanzibar and Sofala was brought to European
knowledge. Ibn Batuta, a native of Morocco, in the 14th
century[165], and Leo Africanus (a Spanish Moor who afterwards
turned Christian), in the 16th century, reached the Niger and the
regions round Lake Chad. The geographical enterprise of the Moors
communicated itself to their conquerors, the Portuguese. Besides
their great navigators, the Portuguese sent out overland explorers,
the first, named João Fernandez, having in 1445 explored the Sahara
Desert inland from the Rio d’Ouro. It is stated that Pero d’Evora
and Gonçalvez Eannes actually travelled overland in 1487 from
Senegambia to Timbuktu; but doubt has been thrown on their having
reached this distant city; they may possibly have got as far as
Jenné. Much more real and important were the explorations of Pero de
Covilhão; who travelled in Sofala and reached Abyssinia in 1490 on
his return from India, and remained in that country for the rest of
his life. Passing over Francisco Barreto, who explored Zambezia more
for immediate political purposes in 1569 and subsequent years, we
may next note the exploration of a Portuguese gentleman named Jaspar
Bocarro, who in 1616 made a journey overland from the central
Zambezi, across the river Shiré, near Lake Nyasa and the Ruvuma
river, and thence to the east coast at Mikindani. From Mikindani he
continued his journey to Malindi by sea. In 1613-18 two Portuguese
Jesuit missionaries, Pedro Paez and Jeronimo Lobo, explored
Abyssinia, even far to the south. Paez visited the source of the
Blue Nile, and Lobo directed his travels to the quasi-Christian
states to the south of Abyssinia. In 1622, Lobo and other Portuguese
missionaries attempted to enter Abyssinia by way of Zeila
(Somaliland). They met with great misfortunes and much cruelty at
the hands of the Somalis and the Egyptian Turks. Six missionaries
died or were murdered. Lobo found his way from Mombasa to India,
and, nothing daunted, returned to the Danákil coast in 1625 and
landed at Bailul, opposite Mokha. His clothes tattered and his feet
bleeding, he passed through the rough Danákil country, climbed the
Abyssinian mountains, and reached the Jesuit mission centre at
Fremona, near Axum. He then made a really remarkable exploration of
Abyssinia, and visited the source of the Blue Nile; but the jealous
Abyssinians expelled him and the other Jesuits from Abyssinia in
1633 by handing them over as prisoners to the Turks at Masawa[166].
It was thanks to the travels of Paez and Lobo that Abyssinian
geography became so well known in Europe when all the rest of
interior Africa was a blank. Numbers of unnamed, unremembered
Portuguese soldiers and missionaries must have plunged into the
interior of Africa between 1445 and the end of the 17th century,
bringing back jumbled information of lakes and rivers and negro
states; but their information has perished—except in an indirect
form—and their names are lost to history.

In 1588 Andrew Battel, a fisherman of Leigh in Essex, was wrecked on
the coast of Brazil, seized by the Indians as a “pirate,” and handed
over to the Portuguese at Rio de Janeiro. The Portuguese decided to
deport him to Angola. The vessel in which he travelled reached
Benguela at a time when it was being ravaged by the predatory
“Jagas[167].” The Portuguese being obliged to leave a hostage with
the Jagas, left Battel behind; and in the company of these wild
people he seems to have traversed much of the Congo country behind
Angola and Loango before he eventually reached the coast again
(north of the Congo) near a Portuguese fort, where he was allowed by
the Jagas to leave them and whence the Portuguese permitted him to
return to England in 1607. He appears to have roamed over South-West
Africa for nearly 18 years, and he brought back with him fairly
truthful accounts of the pygmy races, the anthropoid apes, and some
of the big game which penetrates the interior of Benguela from the
south.

At the commencement of the 17th century, William Lithgow, a Scottish
traveller, visited Tunis and Algeria. In 1618 the London Company of
Adventurers despatched George Thompson, who had already travelled in
Barbary, to explore the river Gambia. During his absence up the
river the ship by which he had come from England was seized and the
crew murdered by Portuguese and half-caste slave traders, who
resented this invasion of their special domain. Thompson managed to
send back word of his difficulties, and the Company of Adventurers
despatched another small ship. After sending her back with letters,
Thompson continued his journeys for a distance of about 80 miles
above the mouth of the Gambia. Thompson, however, lost his head,
became fantastic in his notions, and is supposed to have been killed
by his own English seamen, who afterwards boldly walked to the
Senegal coast and were sent home in a Dutch ship. A third vessel
sailed from London, commanded by Richard Jobson, to enquire after
Thompson’s fate. Jobson’s first voyage, though he reached the point
where Thompson had disappeared, was not very successful. On his
return from Gravesend with two ships in 1620, he sailed up the
Gambia to a place called Kasson, where dwelt an influential
Portuguese who had been the instigator of the destruction of his
predecessor’s ship. This man fled at Jobson’s approach, and the
latter continued on his way till he reached Tenda, where Thompson
had disappeared. He then travelled in boats far above the Barrakonda
Rapids[168].

Then followed the journey of Jannequin de Rochefort and his
companions in Senegal, and the still more important explorations of
Brüe and Campagnon in the same region, journeys which have been
referred to in Chapter IX. During the reign of king Charles II a
Dutch or Anglicized Dutch merchant, named Vermuyden, asserted that
he had ascended the Gambia and reached a country beyond, full of
gold, but the truth of this story is open to considerable suspicion.
In 1723 Captain Bartholomew Stibbs, and later still a man named
Harrison, repeated Jobson’s explorations of the Gambia. In 1720-30
Dr Shaw, an Englishman, travelled in Egypt, Algeria[169] and Tunis,
and gave the first fairly accurate account of the Barbary States
which had been received since they became Muhammadanized. A little
later (1737-40) an English clergyman, Doctor of Laws and Fellow of
the Royal Society, Richard Pococke, travelled in Egypt and explored
the Nile as far as the first cataract. In about 1780, Sonnini, an
Italian, born in Alsace, explored Egypt, and gave a really
circumstantial account of that country which did much to incite the
French Revolutionary Government to invade it. In 1768-73 James
Bruce, a Scotchman of good family, who had been educated at Harrow,
and had spent two-and-a-half years as Consul at Algiers, travelled
first in Tunis, Tripoli, and Syria. He then entered Egypt, and,
becoming interested in the Nile question, he voyaged down the Red
Sea to Masawa, and journeyed to Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia.
Having some knowledge of medicine, he found favour with the
authorities, and was given a command in the Abyssinian cavalry.
After many disappointments, his ardent wish was granted; and he
arrived at what he believed to be the sources of the Nile, but which
really were the head-waters of the Blue Nile, to the south of
Abyssinia. He journeyed back by way of Sennār and the Nubian Desert
to Cairo. In 1793 William George Browne, a Londoner, and a member of
Oriel College, Oxford, attracted by the accounts of Bruce’s travels,
entered Egypt, and crossed the Libyan Desert from Asiut to Darfur in
1793. There he was treated extremely badly by the sultan of the
country, and practically endured a captivity of three years before
he succeeded in returning to Egypt.

During the 18th century rumours had gradually been taking the shape
of a belief that there was a great river in Western Africa on the
banks of which stood the famous city of Timbuktu. This river was
identified with Pliny’s Nigris or Nigir[170]. At first it was
thought that the Niger was the Gambia or Senegal, but at last it was
believed that the Niger must rise southward, beyond the sources of
these rivers, and flow to the eastward. Sir Joseph Banks, President
of the Royal Society, who had accompanied Cook on his journey round
the world, joined with other persons of distinction, and formed the
African Association on the 19th of June, 1788, with the special
object of exploring the Niger. At first they resolved to try from
the North coast of Africa or from Egypt; but these expeditions
proving unsuccessful, an attempt was made to march into the unknown
from Sierra Leone. Major Houghton, who had been Consul in Morocco,
was employed amongst other travellers, and he succeeded in passing
through Bambuk on his way to Timbuktu; but he was intercepted by the
Moors of the Sahara, robbed, and left to die naked in the desert.
From Egypt a German traveller named Friedrich Hornemann was
despatched by the same association. He reached Fezzan, set out on a
journey to Bornu, and was never heard of afterwards, though it is
practically certain that he reached the Niger in the country of
Nupe[171] about 1800. In 1795 the zealous Association accepted the
services of a young Scotch surgeon named Mungo Park, and sent him
out to discover the Niger from the West coast. Mungo Park started at
the age of 24, having had a previous experience in scientific
exploration as assistant surgeon on an East Indiaman, which had made
a voyage to Sumatra. Park reached Pisania, a station high up the
Gambia River, in 1795. He started at the end of that year, and after
crossing the Senegal river and going through many adventures, he
entered the Moorish countries of Kaarta and Ludamar to the
north-east. Hence, after enduring captivity and great hardships, he
escaped, and gradually found his way to the Niger at Sego, and
struggled along the river bank for a short distance farther east.
His return journey along the Niger was attended by such hardships
that one marvels at the physical strength which brought him through
alive. However, at last he reached Bamaku, and thence after almost
incredible difficulties regained Pisania on the Gambia, about a year
and a quarter after setting out thence to discover the Niger. Owing
to his return voyage taking him to the West Indies, he did not reach
England till the 22nd of December, 1797, after performing a journey
which, even if he had not subsequently become the Stanley of the
Niger, would have made him lastingly famous. London received him
with enthusiasm, but after the first novelty had worn off a period
of forgetfulness set in. Park married, and settled down in Peebles
as a medical practitioner. But in process of time the influence of
the African Association filtered even into the stony heart of a
Government department; and it was resolved by the Colonial Office
(then a branch of the War Office) to send Mungo Park back to
continue his exploration of the Niger. He was given £5000 for his
expenses, and an ample outfit of stores and arms and other
equipment. He held a Captain’s commission, and was allowed to select
soldiers from the garrison of Goree. He took his brother-in-law with
him as second in command, a draughtsman named Scott, and several
boatbuilders and carpenters. At Goree he selected one officer, 35
privates, and two seamen. The party left the Gambia in 1805. They
were soon attacked with fever, and by the time they had reached the
Niger only seven out of the 38 soldiers and seamen who had left
Goree were living. Descending the Niger past Sego, Mungo Park built
a rough and ready kind of boat at Sansanding, which he named the
_Joliba_. By this time his party had been reduced to five, including
himself. On the 12th of November, 1805, they set out from Sansanding
(whence they sent back to the Gambia their letters and journals) to
trace the Niger to its mouth. Mungo Park was never heard from any
more. It was ascertained, by the information subsequently gathered
from native traders and chiefs, that his party met with constant
opposition from the natives in its descent of the river, with the
result that he and his companions were continually fighting. After
Mungo Park entered the Hausa-speaking countries of Sokoto the enmity
of the natives increased, apparently because he was unable to pay
his way with presents. At last, at Busa, where further navigation
was obstructed by rocks, the natives closed in on him. Finding no
way of escape, Park jumped into the river with Lieutenant Martyn (a
Royal Artillery Officer), and was drowned. After Park’s death, Major
Peddie, Captain Campbell, Major Gray, and Dr Dochard all strove to
follow in Park’s footsteps from the direction of the Gambia, but all
died untimely deaths from fever, though Dr Dochard succeeded in
reaching Sego on the Niger.

The presence of the Dutch in South Africa did not lead to great
explorations. Such journeys as were made were chiefly parallel to
the coast. In 1685 Commander Van der Stel explored Namakwaland to
within a very short distance of the Orange river; but it was some 60
years later before that river was actually discovered by a Boer
elephant hunter. Its discovery was made known scientifically by an
expedition under Captain Hop in 1761. This expedition obtained
several giraffes, which were sent home by Governor Tulbagh, and were
the first to reach Europe. In 1777 Captain Robert Jacob Gordon, a
Scotchman in the service of the Dutch East India Company, discovered
the Orange river at its junction with the Vaal. Subsequently Captain
Gordon, with Lieutenant William Patterson, an Englishman, made a
journey overland from the Namakwa country to the mouth of the Orange
river, which they ascended for 30 or 40 miles. They christened what
the Dutch had hitherto called the “Great (Groote) river” the “Orange
river,” out of compliment to the Stadhouder. There is also a rumour
that two Dutch commissioners, Truster and Sommervill, went on a
cattle-purchasing expedition in 1801 beyond the Orange river, and
penetrated through the Bechuana country to the vicinity of Lake
Ngami.

Fired by the news of African discoveries, Portugal awoke from one of
her secular slumbers in 1798—as she similarly awoke in 1877—and
despatched a Brazilian, Dr Francisco José Maria de Lacerda, to the
Zambezi, to attempt a journey across Africa from East to West. The
results of this first scientific exploration of Central Africa have
been touched on in Chapter IV. It may be sufficient to mention here
that Dr de Lacerda travelled up the Zambezi to Tete, and from Tete
north-westwards to the vicinity of Lake Mweru, near the shores of
which he died. He had been preceded along this route by two Goanese
of the name of Pereira. In the beginning of the 19th century two
half-caste Portuguese named Baptista and Amaro José crossed Africa
from the Kwango river, behind Angola, to Tete on the Zambezi. In
1831 Major Monteiro and Captain Gamitto repeated Dr de Lacerda’s
journey from Tete to the Kazembe’s country, near Lake Mweru; and in
1846 a Portuguese merchant at Tete named Candido de Costa Cardoso,
claimed to have sighted the southwest corner of Lake Maravi (Nyasa).

To return again to South Africa—British rule brought about a great
development in exploration. Campbell, a Scotch missionary, in 1812
laid down the course of the Orange river on the map and discovered
the source of the Limpopo. Captain (afterwards General Sir J. E.)
Alexander made an interesting journey overland from Cape Town to
Walfish Bay; Dr William Burchell and Captain William Cornwallis
Harris[172] explored Bechuanaland and the Transvaal, and added much
to our knowledge of the great African fauna. Robert Moffat and other
missionaries extended our knowledge of Bechuanaland; Angas
investigated Zululand; Major Vardon explored the Limpopo.

In the first decade of the 19th century Henry Salt (formerly British
Consul-General in Egypt) explored Abyssinia and the Zanzibar Coast.
In 1822 Captain (afterwards Admiral) W. F. W. Owen left England with
two ships, and spent four years exploring the East and West coasts
of Africa, and the island of Madagascar. He especially added to our
knowledge of Delagoa Bay and its vicinity. He despatched vessels on
the first voyage of discovery up the Zambezi, which unhappily ended
in the death of all the British officers. The limit reached was
Sena. The East and West coasts of Africa were charted by Captain
Owen with the first approach to real accuracy. Although he was not
an overland explorer, his voyage marks a most important epoch in
African discovery, and many of his surveys are still in use.

Mungo Park and others having entertained the idea that the Niger
might find its ultimate outlet to the sea in the river Congo, an
expedition was sent out in 1816 to explore the lower Congo. It was a
naval expedition, of course, and the command was given to Captain
Tuckey. He surveyed the river to the Yelala Falls, and carried his
expedition inland to above these rapids near the modern station of
Isangila. Unfortunately, he and nearly all the officers of his
expedition died of fever; but his journey, being conducted on
scientific lines, resulted in considerable additions to our
knowledge of Bantu Africa, its peoples, languages, and flora.

Major Laing, a Scotchman, who had already, in 1823, distinguished
himself by exploring the source of the Rokel river of Sierra Leone
(practically locating the source of the Niger and ascertaining its
approximate altitude), determined in 1825 to strike out a new
departure in the search for Timbuktu. He started from Tripoli,
journeyed to Ghadames and the oasis of Twat, and thence rode across
the desert to the Niger over a route which may some day be followed
by a French trans-Saharan railway. He was attacked on the way by the
detestable Tawareq, who left him for dead, bleeding from twenty-four
wounds. Still, he recovered, and actually entered Timbuktu on the
18th of August, 1826. Being advised by the people to leave because
of their dislike to the presence of a Christian, he started to
return across the desert, but was killed at El Arwan, a few marches
north of Timbuktu, at the instigation of the Fula king Ahmadu of
Masina.

French names were scarce in the roll of explorers after the journeys
of Brüe and Campagnon at the beginning of the 18th century; though
Le Vaillant, as a naturalist, made small but very interesting
explorations in South Africa. But in the early part of the 19th
century, after the recovery of their Senegalese possessions,
Frenchmen resumed the exploration of the Dark Continent. Already, in
1804, Rubault, an official of the Senegal Company, had explored the
desert country between the Senegal and the Gambia, and the upper
waters of the Senegal. In 1818 Gaspard Mollien discovered the source
of the Gambia, and explored Portuguese Guinea. In 1824 and 1825 De
Beaufort visited the country of Kaarta to the north-east of the
Senegal. Then came René Caillé, who reached Timbuktu and returned
thence to Morocco in 1827, a journey discussed for its political
importance in Chapter IX.

In 1817 a British mission was sent to Ashanti, under the eventual
leadership of Thomas Edward Bowdich. Bowdich, who made a treaty with
the king of Ashanti, employed the opportunities of intercourse with
Hausa, Mandingo, and Moorish merchants at the court of this monarch
to collect a quantity of most valuable information as to the course
of the Niger, the fate of Mungo Park, the geography, ethnology and
languages of the heart of West Africa within the Niger bend. His
book, published in 1820, is a valuable work in African anthropology
and history.

The British Government, still pegging away at the Niger problem, was
roused to fresh exertions by the information collected. Impressed by
the success with which Laing had penetrated Central Africa from
Tripoli, it resolved to try that Regency[173] as a basis of
discovery. Mr Ritchie and Captain George Lyon started from Tripoli
in 1818, and reached the country of Fezzan. Here Ritchie died, and
Lyon did not get beyond the southernmost limit of Fezzan. On his
return a second expedition was organized under Dr Walter Oudney (who
was actually appointed Political Agent to Bornu before that country
had been discovered by Europeans!), Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton,
R.N., and Lieutenant Dixon Denham. Starting from Tripoli in the
spring of 1822, they were compelled to halt there by the obstacles
that were placed in their way. Denham, an impulsive, energetic man,
rushed back to Tripoli to remonstrate with the Basha, and receiving
nothing but empty verbal assurances, started for Marseilles with the
intention of proceeding to England, but was recalled by the Basha of
Tripoli, who henceforth placed no obstacles in his way. During his
absence the expedition had visited the town of Ghat, far down in the
Sahara. In 1823 this expedition reached the Sudan, and its members
were the first Europeans to discover Lake Chad. They then visited
Bornu and the Hausa state of Kano, where Dr Oudney died. After
Oudney’s death, Clapperton proceeded to Sokoto, and very nearly
reached the Niger, but was prevented from doing so by the jealousy
of the Fula sultan of Sokoto. Whilst Major Denham was remaining
behind in Bornu, there arrived with a supply of stores a young
officer named Toole, who had traversed the long route from Tripoli
to Bornu almost alone, and had made the journey from London in four
months. Denham and Toole explored the eastern and southern shores of
Lake Chad, and discovered the Shari river, after which the
unfortunate Toole died.

Denham and Clapperton then returned to Tripoli[174]. The British
Government sent Clapperton back to discover the outlet of the Niger.
He landed at Badagri, in what is now the British colony of Lagos. He
lost his companions one by one, with the exception of his invaluable
servant Richard Lander. Clapperton passed through Yorubaland, and
actually struck the Niger at the Busa Rapids, near where Park and
his company perished. From Busa Clapperton and his party travelled
through Nupe and the Hausa states of Kano and Sokoto; but he arrived
at an unfortunate time, when Sokoto was at war with Bornu, and the
Fula sultan was much too suspicious of Clapperton’s motives to help
him in the exploration of the Niger. From fever and disappointment
Clapperton died at Sokoto on the 13th of April, 1827. It was a great
pity that he went there at all. What he should have done on reaching
Busa was to work his way down from Busa to the sea. All his
companions, except his servant Lander, had predeceased him. Lander
now endeavoured to trace the Niger to the sea, but the Fula sultan
still opposed him, and he was stripped of nearly all the property of
the expedition before he could leave Sokoto. Eventually he made his
way back to Badagri by much the same route that Clapperton had
followed. Lander was a Cornishman, a man of short stature, but
pleasing appearance and manners. He had had a slight education as a
boy, but learned a good deal more in going out to service as page,
footman, and valet. In this last-named capacity he had journeyed on
the continent of Europe and in South Africa before accompanying
Clapperton. When he returned to England his story did not arouse
much interest, as Arctic explorations had replaced Africa in the
mind of the public. Moreover, the ultimate course of the Niger had
by a process of exhaustion almost come to be guessed aright.

So far back as 1808 Dr Reichardt of Weimar had suggested that the
Niger reached the Atlantic in the Gulf of Guinea through the Oil
rivers. Later, James McQueen, who as a West Indian planter had
cross-examined many slaves on the subject of the Niger, not only
showed that this river obviously entered the sea in the Bight of
Benin, but predicted that this great stream would some day become a
highway of British commerce. Somewhat grudgingly, the Government
agreed to send Lander and his brother back to Africa, poorly endowed
with funds. Not discouraged, however, the Landers arrived at Badagri
in March, 1830, and reached the Niger at Busa after an overland
journey of three months. Meeting with no opposition from the
natives, they paddled down stream for two months in canoes. At
length they reached the delta, but there unfortunately fell into the
power of a large fleet of Ibo war canoes. By the Ibos they were
likely to have been killed but for the remonstrances of some
Muhammadan teachers, who, oddly enough, were found with this fleet.
Moreover, a native trader of Brass, an Ijō settlement near the coast
of the delta, happened to be visiting the Ibo chief, and agreed to
ransom the Lander brothers on condition of receiving from them a
‘bill’ agreeing to repay to the ‘king’ of Brass the value of the
goods which his son had furnished for their redemption. They reached
the sea at the mouth of the Brass river, one of the outlets of the
Niger, but not the main stream. An English merchant ship being
anchored there, the Landers went delightedly on board, thinking the
end of their troubles had come. They asked the captain to honour
their bill, the amount of which the Government would repay him. To
their amazement he refused, and altogether behaved in such a
disgraceful manner that it is a pity his name has not been preserved
for infamy. However, they managed on this ship to get a passage
across to Fernando Pô, where they landed. The vessel by which they
travelled, and the master of which treated them so badly, was
afterwards captured by a pirate and never heard of again. It may be
mentioned here that Richard Lander ultimately repaid the chief’s son
of Brass the whole amount of the goods which he had spent in
redeeming the two explorers from the Ibo king’s clutches.

No great fuss was made over the Landers when they returned in 1831.
John Lander remained at home. Richard Lander afterwards joined the
MacGregor Laird expedition for opening up the Niger. This commercial
undertaking met with the most awful disasters from sickness, but
James MacGregor Laird nevertheless succeeded in discovering the
Benue, and ascended it for some distance. In 1833 Richard Lander and
Dr Oldfield ascended the Niger from the Nun mouth as far as Rabba,
and explored the Benue for 140 miles above its junction with the
Niger. After returning from a third trip up the Niger Lander was
attacked by savages in the delta, was severely wounded, and died
from his wounds at Fernando Pô on the 6th of February, 1834.

In 1840-41 Mr John Beecroft, superintendent of Fernando Pô, and
afterwards first consul for the Bights of Biafra and Benin, not only
explored the Niger, but made known for the first time the Cross
river, to the east, which he ascended from Old Calabar to the
rapids. In 1841 the British Government sent out an important
surveying expedition to the Niger under four naval officers. This
expedition was despatched at the instigation of Sir Thomas Fowell
Buxton, the philanthropist, who had thrown himself heart and soul
into the anti-slavery movement. At this period philanthropy reigned
supreme in England, and a sense of humour was in abeyance, though it
was beginning to bubble up in the pages of Dickens, who has so
deliciously satirized this Niger expedition in “Bleak House” with
its inimitable Mrs Jellyby and her industrial mission of
Borriaboola-Gha. The ghastly unhealthiness of the lower Niger was
ignored, and an item in the programme of the expedition was the
establishment of a model farm at the junction of the Benue and the
Niger. The other aims of the expedition were nicely balanced between
the spreading of Christian civilization and the suppression of the
slave trade on the one hand and the zealous pushing of Manchester
goods on the other. Numerous treaties were made, but the results of
the expedition were disappointment and disaster, occasioned by utter
ignorance of the conditions under which some degree of health might
be retained, and a muddle-headed indecision as to the practical
results which were to be secured by the opening up of the Niger. The
loss of life was enormous. Still, in spite of this check, British
traders gradually crept into and up the Niger, with the results
detailed in Chapter VIII.

In 1836 John Davidson, an Englishman of considerable attainments,
started from the Atlantic coast of Morocco for Timbuktu, but was
murdered at Tenduf, in the Sahara Desert.

In 1849 the British Government determined to make another effort to
open up commercial relations with the Niger and Central Africa, but
resolved again to try the overland route from Tripoli. After the
Napoleonic wars were finished, the British Government had sent out
various surveying parties to map the coasts of Africa; and a
well-equipped expedition under Admiral Beechey made a thorough
investigation of the coasts of Tripoli and Barka in 1821 and 1822,
and sent back the first trustworthy accounts of the Greek ruins of
the Cyrenaica. Since that time several consular representatives of
Great Britain in Tripoli had carried on explorations in the
interior. Among these was James Richardson, who had originally
accompanied Admiral Beechey, and who further made most important
explorations of the Tripolitan Sahara, discovering many interesting
rock paintings and inscriptions. He was appointed to be the head of
this overland expedition of 1849, and associated with him were two
Germans, Barth and Overweg. Dr Heinrich Barth was born at Hamburg in
the year 1821. He had travelled extensively in Asia Minor, in
Mediterranean Africa, and up the Nile.

This expedition left Tripoli in the spring of 1850, and reached
Bornu without any difficulty. Here its members separated. Richardson
died soon afterwards and was buried near Lake Chad; Overweg died in
1852, having been the first European to navigate Lake Chad[175]. He
was buried on the shores of that lake. For the next four years Barth
carried on gigantic explorations on his own account. He journeyed
from Lake Chad along the river Komadugu, and thence across northern
Hausaland to the Niger at Say. From Say he cut across the bend of
the Niger to Timbuktu, and descended the river back to Say, and
thence to Sokoto, from which he made his way to Kukawa in Bornu,
where he met Dr Eduard Vogel and two non-commissioned officers of
the Royal Engineers, who had been sent by the British Government to
reinforce his expedition. Barth had previously in 1851 made a
journey due south, and had struck the river Benue very high up in
its course. Vogel started to complete the discoveries in this
direction, and eventually to make his way to the Nile. He was
accompanied by Corporal MacGuire, but the two quarrelled and parted,
and both were murdered in the vicinity of Wadai. Dr Barth and the
other non-commissioned officer made their way back across the desert
to Tripoli and England. Barth’s journey was productive of almost
more solid information than that of any of the great African
explorers, excepting Stanley, and possibly Nachtigal, Schweinfurth
and Emin Pasha. Besides the geographical information given, Barth’s
book in five volumes and his various linguistic works on the Central
Sudan languages represent an amount of information that has not been
sufficiently digested yet. Heinrich Barth stands in the first rank
of the _very_ great explorers, a class which should perhaps include
Mungo Park, Livingstone, Stanley, Speke and Grant, Burton, Baker,
Schweinfurth, Nachtigal, Rohlfs, Grenfell, Binger and Joseph
Thomson; men who have not only made great geographical discoveries
but who have enriched us as well with that information which clothes
the dry bones of the mere delineation of rivers, lakes, and
mountains. Barth received a somewhat grudging reward for his
services in England. After some delay he was created a C.B., and
then his existence was ignored by the Government, to whom still, and
for many years to come, an African explorer, laying bare to our
knowledge hundreds of thousands of square miles of valuable
territory, was less worthy of remembrance than a Chargé d’Affaires
at the court of the Grand Duke of Pumpernickel.

In 1846 a Portuguese trader named Graça reached the court of the
Mwata Yanvo in southern Congoland, from Angola; and between 1847 and
1851 the hinterland of Angola was thoroughly explored by a
Hungarian, Ladislas Magyar. In 1853 a Portuguese trader, Silva
Porto, actually crossed Africa, from Benguela to the mouth of the
Ruvuma, passing to the south of Lake Nyasa, but not sighting it.

In 1858 a Moroccan Jew named Mordokhai[176] Abi-Serūr made a journey
from the south of Morocco to Timbuktu and afterwards resided in that
city till 1862, thenceforward repeating his journeys thither until
1869. In 1830 the Church Missionary Society had sent emissaries to
Abyssinia, who included among them latterly such men as Dr Ludwig
Krapf[177]. But these agents were expelled in 1842, and Krapf
settled on the east coast of Africa two years afterwards. Here he
was joined by Johann Rebmann, also in the service of the Church
Missionary Society. Making Mombasa their head-quarters, Krapf and
Rebmann executed some remarkable journeys into the interior of what
was then an utterly unknown country. Rebmann in 1848 saw for the
first time Kilima-njaro, the highest mountain in Africa, nearly
20,000 feet high. In 1849 Krapf not only sighted Kilima-njaro, but
pushed his way much further north, and caught a glimpse of Mt Kenya.
Besides these remarkable discoveries (the truth of which was
strongly doubted by arm-chair geographers in England) they brought
back with them such circumstantial accounts of the great Central
African lakes as to lure others on to the exploration of these
regions.

During the thirties Abyssinia and Shoa were explored by Dr E. Rüppel
(a German traveller who added greatly to our knowledge of African
natural history); during the forties and fifties by the Irish-French
brothers, Antoine and Arnaud d’Abbadie (who made the most elaborate
surveys), and by Sir W. Cornwallis Harris; and subsequently by
Théophile Le Fébvre, Mansfield Parkyns, H. Dufton, and the
geographer, Dr C. T. Beke. In 1856 Mr James Hamilton made a most
interesting journey of exploration in the Cyrenaica, and thence
travelled overland through the oasis of Siwa to Egypt.

Meantime, in South Africa Livingstone had arisen. He had settled in
Bechuanaland in 1841, and had gradually extended his journeys
further and further north, until, in company with William Oswell and
Murray, two English sportsmen, he discovered Lake Ngami. Mr Francis
Galton had attempted to reach this lake in 1851 by an interesting
but very difficult journey through Damaraland; but he did not
succeed in getting nearer to Ngami than the bed of a dried-up
watercourse, the Omuramba. Andersson, a Swede, however, in 1851 left
Walfish Bay, and travelling through Ovamboland, managed to arrive at
the shores of Ngami. Green explored the lower course of the
Okabango-Teoge in 1856. In 1851 Livingstone, accompanied by his wife
and family, and by Mr Oswell, reached the Zambezi at Sesheke.
Feeling himself on the threshold of vast discoveries, Livingstone
despatched his wife and family to England, with the monetary help of
Mr Oswell, and placed himself under the tuition of Sir Thomas
McClear, the Astronomer Royal at Cape Town. Turning his face
northward in June 1852, he reached the Zambezi again in that year,
traced it along its upper course, near to its source, and then
travelled across to Angola, which he reached in May 1854. Returning
again from Angola to the Zambezi, he followed that river more or
less closely to near its mouth, and then made his way to Quelimane
by the route always followed until the recent discovery of the
Chinde mouth of the Zambezi. From Quelimane he was conveyed by a
British gunboat to Mauritius, and arrived in London on the 12th of
December, 1856.

Somaliland had been explored in 1854 by Richard Francis Burton and
John Hanning Speke. Burton was an officer in the Indian army, and
had previously made a remarkable journey to the holy places of the
Hedjaz. In 1856 the Royal Geographical Society (which had developed
from out of the African Association in 1830) despatched an
expedition under the command of Burton, who chose Speke for his
lieutenant, to search for the great lakes which the Württemberg
missionaries reported to exist. As the result of this epoch-making
exploration Burton discovered Tanganyika (though he only mapped out
the northern half), and Speke discovered the south shore of the
Victoria Nyanza. Hurrying home before Burton, Speke got the ear of
the Geographical Society, and was at once sent back (with Captain J.
A. Grant as his companion) to discover the sources of the Nile.
Burton was rather hardly treated in the matter, but he was a man too
clever for his times, and one who made many enemies amongst those
who directed geographical exploration in the middle of the 19th
century. Speke and Grant reached the northern end of the Victoria
Nyanza and the outlet of the Victoria Nile at the Ripon Falls,
journeyed northwards and missed the Albert Nyanza; then, met and
relieved by Sir Samuel Baker, travelled down the Nile to Egypt. It
was a most remarkable journey, but in some senses a blundering one,
remarkable as much for what was missed as for what was gained in
exploration. Through not having made any survey of the vast lake
they had undoubtedly discovered and often seen, and not being able
to give much idea of its shape or area, its very existence came
afterwards to be doubted until it was conclusively established by
Stanley in 1875. Speke and Grant had left England in April 1860, and
reached Khartum on the 30th of March, 1864, and England soon
afterwards. Speke died from a gun-accident in September 1864. Grant,
afterwards made a Colonel and a C.B., accompanied the British
expedition to Abyssinia, and lived till 1892.

Prior to the journey of Speke and Grant down the Nile, that river
had been already made known up to the vicinity of the great lakes by
explorers following in the footsteps of the military expeditions
sent by Muhammad Ali to conquer the Sudan[178]. A Catholic mission
had established itself on the Upper Nile in 1848, mainly supported
by the Austrian Government. Amongst the missionaries was Dr Ignatius
Knoblecher, who in 1849 explored the White Nile beyond Gondokoro to
Mount Logwek. Other explorations were carried out by Giovanni
Beltrame, another missionary. A Maltese ivory merchant named Andrea
Debono and a Venetian named Giovanni Miani had also explored the
White Nile; and the latter was the first European to visit the
Nyam-nyam country. An English (or, rather, Welsh) ivory trader named
John Petherick had started from Khartum in November 1853, and had
ascended the Bahr-al-Ghazal River for some distance. He made other
journeys into the unknown, more or less in the region of the
Bahr-al-Ghazal and the Nyam-nyam country. Petherick, who became
British consul at Khartum, was entrusted with the mission of meeting
and relieving Speke and Grant, but by some accident failed to do so.
On one of his later journeys he was accompanied by Dr Murie, a
naturalist, as far as Gondokoro. Theodor von Heuglin, Kiezelbach,
Munzinger, and Dr Steudner were among the methodical German
explorers who travelled in the Egyptian Sudan and in Abyssinia in
1861 and 1862. The greatest explorer of these regions, however, next
to Speke and Grant, was Mr, afterwards Sir Samuel, Baker, who with
his wife conducted an exploration of the Upper Nile on his own
account with the intention of meeting and if possible succouring
Speke and Grant. Baker had previously explored the Abyssinian
tributaries of the Nile. After leaving Speke and Grant to continue
their homeward journey, he started off for the south to fill up the
blanks in their discoveries. The Nile was reached in the Bunyoro
country; and after a long detention at the court of the scoundrelly
Nyoro king, and enduring incredible sufferings, Baker and his wife
discovered the Albert Nyanza, which from various causes he took to
be much larger than it really is. The entrance and the exit of the
Nile into and out from the Albert Nyanza were visited. The Bakers
reached Gondokoro, and then returned homewards in March 1865. Their
journey down the White Nile was blocked by the obstruction of a
vegetable growth (the _sudd_). At last this was cut through, and
Egypt was eventually reached. When Baker returned to London he was
knighted for the discoveries he had made. The Albert Nyanza was
afterwards circumnavigated by Gessi Pasha, a Levantine Italian in
the service of the Egyptian Government, and by Colonel Mason Bey,
neither of whom, curiously enough, noticed the Semliki flowing into
the lake, nor did they catch sight of the snow-covered Ruwenzori.

A romantic figure in Nile and Sahara exploration was Alexandrine
Tinne. “Young and beautiful (she was only 33 at the time of her
death), remarkably accomplished, a daring horsewoman, a charming
Diana; mistress of many tongues, including Arabic, and generous to a
fault, it is little wonder that she lingered as a beautiful and
gracious demi-goddess in the remembrance of such Arabs and Nile
Negroes of the Egyptian Sudan as were not exterminated by the
Mahdi’s revolt[179].” Alexandrine Tinne, between 1858 and 1864,
devoted herself to the exploration of the Nile and the
Bahr-al-Ghazal. She was accompanied on these journeys by her mother
and aunt, both of whom died of blackwater fever. In 1868 Miss Tinne
determined to cross the Sahara from Tripoli to Lake Chad, and then
travel from Chad to the Upper Nile; but on the way to Ghat, an
ancient town inhabited by very fanatical Berbers, she was killed by
the orders of a treacherous Tawareq chief, as also were her Dutch
attendants.

Livingstone’s first great journey resulted in his being sent back
with a strong expedition to pursue his discoveries in Zambezia.
During these journeys between 1858 and 1864 the river Shiré was
explored, and Lake Nyasa was discovered and partially mapped.
Livingstone was accompanied by Dr (afterwards Sir John) Kirk, who
made most valuable natural history collections, and whose subsequent
long career as Political Agent at Zanzibar and many explorations
along the East coast of Africa have caused his name to be
imperishably connected with that part of the continent.

The French occupation of Algeria and their conquests in Senegambia
had naturally produced considerable exploring work, though, as much
of this was done piece by piece, it has not resulted in the handing
down of notable names, with some few exceptions. Panet, a Frenchman,
in 1850 travelled overland along the Sahara coast from St Louis, at
the mouth of the Senegal, to Morocco. Vincent, another Frenchman, in
1860 explored the country from St Louis to the Adrar district of the
Sahara, up to what is nowadays the Spanish Protectorate of the Rio
de Oro. Paul Soleillet described the Algerian Sahara; and Duveyrier,
a really scientific traveller, made important journeys from Algeria
southward and south-eastward, adding much to our knowledge of the
Northern Sahara. Duveyrier visited the interior of western Tripoli,
and brought back considerable information about the Tawareq and
their dialects.

In 1866 Livingstone resumed his explorations of East-Central Africa.
He travelled overland south-westwards from the Ruvuma River to the
south end of Lake Nyasa, then north-west and north to the south end
of Tanganyika, thence from Tanganyika to Lake Mweru, to the mighty
Luapula River, and to Bangweulu, which lakes and river he discovered
in 1868. Again reaching Tanganyika, he joined some Arabs and crossed
the Manyema country eastward to Nyangwe, on the Lualaba-Congo. From
here he returned to Ujiji, where he was met by Mr H. M. Stanley, who
had been sent out by the _New York Herald_ to relieve the great
explorer. After travelling with Stanley half-way back to Zanzibar,
Livingstone returned to Lake Bangweulu, and died there in 1873.
Various expeditions had been despatched to his relief. One under
Lieutenant Grandy was sent out in 1873 to ascend the Congo, but the
expedition was most unfortunate, and the explorer died near São
Salvador[180]. After many changes and withdrawals, a great
expedition, organized by the Royal Geographical Society, started
from Zanzibar in 1873 to find and relieve Livingstone. It was under
the leadership of Lieutenant (afterwards Commander) Verney Lovett
Cameron. Cameron soon heard of Livingstone’s death, but pushed on to
Tanganyika, and mapped that lake for the first time accurately. He
then travelled across to the Lualaba, which his altitudes
practically determined to be none other than the Upper Congo; but,
deterred from descending it by the tremendous difficulties that
offered themselves, he struck south-westwards across a country not
very difficult to traverse—the slightly civilized Mwata Yanvo’s
empire (impregnated with Portuguese influence), and reached Benguela
in November 1875, the first Englishman to cross Africa.

At the beginning of the sixties Dr Gerhard Rohlfs, one of the
greatest of African travellers, began to explore Morocco. He had
enlisted in the Foreign Legion serving in Algeria, was a doctor of
medicine, a renegade, and had a great knowledge of Arabic. He
subsequently travelled about the southern part of Morocco, and
penetrated to the oases of Twat and Ghadames in the Sahara (1864),
and in 1865 reached Fezzan and Tibesti. In 1866 he started on a
journey to Bornu, and eventually penetrated across the Niger to
Lagos, on the Guinea coast, thus being the first European to make a
complete journey from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Guinea. In
1873 he explored the oases of the Libyan Desert; and in 1878 he
conducted an expedition, despatched by the German Government, to
Wadai, but got no further than the oasis of Kufra. Subsequently two
Italians, Dr Pellegrino Matteucci and Lieutenant Alfonso Maria
Massari, accompanied as far as Darfur by Prince Giovanni Borghese,
travelled across Africa from east to west by way of Suakin,
Kordofan, Wadai, Bornu, Kano, and Nupe to the Niger, whence they
returned to England, where Matteucci unfortunately died (1882). They
were the first Europeans to cross Africa from east to west north of
the Equator, but their journey was not productive of much
geographical knowledge. From the point of view of knowledge acquired
and transmitted, one of the most remarkable journeys ever made in
Africa was that of Dr Gustav Nachtigal, who, after having served as
physician to the Bey of Tunis, was appointed in 1868 by the Prussian
Government to take presents to the Sultan of Bornu. Leaving Tripoli
in February 1869, Nachtigal halted at first in Fezzan, and from that
country made a very interesting journey to Tibesti, a mountainous
region in the very middle of the Sahara Desert. He was the first and
only European who has really examined this remarkable mountainous
region. Returning to Murzuk, he resumed his journey to Bornu, where
he arrived in 1870. He thoroughly explored Lake Chad and much of the
Shari River, and visited Bagirmi, Wadai (where an earlier German
traveller, Moritz von Beurmann, had been murdered in 1863, when
searching for Vogel), Somrai, Darfur, Dar Runga, and Kordofan,
thence returning home through Egypt. He brought back with him an
enormous mass of geographical and linguistic information. In his
journey from Tripoli to Fezzan Nachtigal was accompanied for a
portion of the way by Miss Tinne.

Sir Joseph Hooker, the great botanist, already famous for his
botanical exploration of the Himalayas, of Australia and New
Zealand, and Palestine, in 1871 set out with Mr John Ball on a
journey to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. This resulted in a very
great addition to our knowledge of the North African flora and
fauna, and of that still imperfectly known and appreciated range of
mountains, the highest summits of which may prove to be but little
inferior in altitude to the loftiest African peaks. G. Schaudt, a
German, explored the Moroccan Sahara in 1879-82.