The Danes, who had slave-trading posts on the West African coast, declared slaving illegal in 1802. The English, whose ships were the chief carriers of West African slaves, abolished the trade in 1807, and the last English slaver, Kitty’s Amelia, sailed out of Liverpool on July 27 of that year. Parliament passed an act mandating “all manner of dealing and trading” in slaves in Africa be “utterly abolished, prohibited and declared to be unlawful.” An 1811 bill made it a felony for any British subject to engage in “the carrying trade.”
Voting for abolition was one thing, but persuading other slave-trading powers to do the same was another. From having been the nation most actively engaged in slaving, England became the most zealous enforcer of its suppression. The trade continued to flourish well into the second half of the nineteenth century, as long as North and South America continued to absorb all the slaves Africa could supply. Long after the United States prohibited the importation of new slaves in 1808,* and after Europe agreed to abolition at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the trade survived illegally.
England, the poacher turned gamekeeper, formed a Blockade Squadron (soon to be tagged the “Coffin Squadron”) to intercept slavers in the coves and hidden harbors of the West African coast. Skirmishes at sea and diseases from land took a hellish toll (giving the squadron its nickname). Between 1822 and 1830, of 1,568 sailors and soldiers in one detachment in West Africa, 1,298 (82 percent) died there of “climatic fevers,” 125 died on the voyage home, and half of the survivors died of tropical diseases after returning to England. Only 57 men (less than 4 percent) were discharged as “fit.” With grim humor, Bathurst (Banjul), Gambia, was known colloquially as “half die.”
This was the context within which Clapperton was ordered to persuade Sultan Bello to give up slavery. The English government, now vigorously engaged in the suppression of the slave trade, found a new use for explorers who could spread the message of abolition deep into the African interior, at the source of supply.
Clapperton was also told to pursue commercial and geographical goals. He was to promise Sultan Bello that once the road was open from the coast to Sokoto, “he will receive whatever articles of merchandise he may require at a much cheaper rate than he now pays for those which are brought across the long desert.” And so it may have seemed an afterthought that Clapperton was ordered “to trace the course of the river which is known with certainty to flow past Kabara, or the port of Timbuktoo, and which has been known in modern times by the name of Niger.” The afterthought remained Clapperton’s own priority; he was, to the end, an explorer.
WITH PACKING CRATES FULL of rich gifts for Sultan Bello, the Clapperton party embarked for Africa from Spithead at the end of August. Clapperton had rested for less than ninety days, but he seemed confident to go to one of the world’s most notorious death traps (the west coast of Africa was not called the “white man’s grave” for nothing), with his strength still sapped by his first expedition. After pursuing and capturing several Spanish slavers along the coast and sending their cargoes to Sierra Leone (where the slaves were freed), the Brazen reached Whydah on November 23.
Dr. Dickson was put ashore to explore the interior of Dahomey. Dickson had such a vitriolic temper that Clapperton, who had the same problem, warned him: “The conquest of the people to you will be guided solely by your behaviour toward them. Set a guard over your temper, my dear Dickson, and never let it lead you into error.” It was unheeded advice, for news later reached Clapperton that at a village called Shar, Dickson “had a serious misunderstanding with a party of natives, and his life being threatened by its chief, he was so violently exasperated that he attempted to throttle the individual; which, being observed by his followers, they fell upon the unfortunate doctor, overcame and slew him.” The story must have reminded Clapperton of his own outburst at the grave of Dr. Oudney.
In December, the Brazen landed the rest of the expedition at the slave-trading station of Badagri, 60 miles up the coast. Leaving the Brazen, Lander put a bugle to his lips and played “Over the Hills and Far Away” as sailors on the decks cheered. The explorers went over the side into canoes ready to take them through the terrific Atlantic surf to shore, an event that nearly ended in tragedy. One of the canoes overturned and some of the party might have drowned but for the prompt action of two Africans.
Clapperton’s party left Badagri for the long haul overland to Sokoto—a distance of 475 miles as the crow flies, twice that on foot. The explorers engaged a British trader named Houtson to guide them. There was no sign of Sultan Bello’s messengers, but Clapperton was not discouraged. He was three months late, after all. Houtson promised to take them to Katunga,* about 150 miles north of Badagri, through friendly Yoruba country. They took canoes for the first leg of the journey along the Lagos River. When the Lagos had taken them as far inland as it could, they went into the great triple-canopy rain forest on foot.
The explorers immediately made an elementary mistake, inexplicable given Clapperton’s earlier experiences in Africa. Though he had previously crossed deserts and savanna and had little personal knowledge of the vast, gloomy wilderness near the ocean, he must have suspected something, as all Englishmen did, of the damp “night humors and miasmic vapors” so feared in this area. But lured by the astonishing beauty of the tropical night, he and his men slept out in the open. Mosquito hordes did their unhealthy work. Clapperton was racked by fever within days; he became so ill he had to be carried in a hammock.
Exacerbating his illness, Clapperton discovered that inhabitants of the region had a different attitude toward strangers than the gregarious Yoruba. Where the Yoruba had been helpful, the men of the coast and the forest, while insatiably curious, did nothing to assist the already struggling white men. At every village the explorers were welcomed festively with singing and dancing that went on all night (to the dismay of the exhausted travelers), but that was the extent of their aid.
The villagers stared, sniffed, poked, and tried to examine the genitalia of the white men, but never offered food or shelter. Soaked each night by the rains and heavy dew, footsore (Clapperton’s feet were raw from wearing new boots), and uncertain of his path, Clapperton found that his ability to hold the expedition together was falling apart. The men were separated from their baggage; it would go by another route and not catch up for days. It was impossible to hire forest people to carry those too weak to walk; Clapperton himself could barely totter. Captain Pearce and Dr. Morison were in even worse shape and Lander could barely stand. They reached Laboo (Lalo), only miles from their starting place, in despair.
Clapperton found men to carry Morison and Lander, who were past walking, but when they reached the village of Jannah (Jonah), the bearers abandoned them in an empty hut. Clapperton and the trader Houtson arrived just in time to see Lander go crazy from sunstroke. He ran around camp berserk. To subdue him took the combined strength of the whole party. Dr. Morison predicted that Lander might not last the night. By morning he was better, but Pearce and Morison were now ill in his stead. Clapperton suggested that Houtson take them both back to the coast, but the invalids refused. They had to be carried in hammocks.
Two weeks out of Badagri, Lander was so sick that he recorded, “I was bled in the temple; but the doctor, who was himself suffering from fever, being unable to hold the instruments steadily, inadvertently thrust it into my skull. This accident occasioned the most excruciating agony and made me shriek with pain.” Lander became delirious and had a violent fit, attacking Clapperton. Dr. Morison and Captain Pearce “looked more like walking spectres than living human beings,” Clapperton wrote.
Pearce was a slight, fair man “whose frame was much too delicate for the arduous task that he had undertaken.” Dr. Morison was coaxed into returning with Houtson to the ship in Badagri in the belief that his health would improve by the sea, but it was too late. He died of fever before he reached the coast. With the mission barely under way, both its physicians were dead. Taking a pair of doctors along, as this expeditio
n again proved, provided about as much protection against illness as the fetishes the Africans believed would protect them—perhaps less.
In spite of chaos and death, Clapperton and Lander were diligent in keeping their journals, recording details of the march. Jannah emerges in Clapperton’s pages as “a great place for woodcarvers” (as it remains to this day). It was also active in the slave business. Most of the indigenous men, at the time of the arrival of the explorers, were away on a slave raid to supply a Brazilian brig then anchored at Badagri. Clapperton mentions watching looms at work and visiting dyehouses, finding the indigo of high quality. The whole countryside was well ordered and well governed. They stayed for six days, resting.
The next weeks were harrowing. The rains came in a deluge, the mud at times reaching the horses’ shoulders. That Clapperton allowed his expedition to start into the West African forest belt just as the annual rains were imminent is a good indication of the hurry he was in.
The dead Morison’s servant, an English seaman named George Dawson, remained with Clapperton, but he was delirious and kept repeating that he had deserted his family only to die in a strange land, death crowding life out of him the way the forest trees squeezed the light out of the sky.
He did die, in a particularly bizarre way. Night had fallen and his companions were sleeping, except Dawson, who was raving, blaming himself for the criminal mistake of abandoning his wife and children. As Lander tells the story, “[T]he medicine chest was lying open by Dawson’s side and he perceived it. Pointing to a phial, he desired a black attendant to fill him a glass of its contents; which being promptly done, he eagerly swallowed it…. [A]bout a quarter of an hour afterwards, not hearing Dawson’s groans, I asked how he did; but receiving no answer, I went to his bed-side, and found him a cold and stiffened corpse. Pearce awoke and said: ‘What? Is Dawson dead? Well, poor fellow, his sufferings are over; I cannot long survive him.’ “
The bottle contained ether, and Dawson died instantly from the poison. In the night, the death yells of the African porters, amplified by the sharp tattoo of rain beating on leaking beehive huts, petrified the survivors, themselves sick and exhausted and near death.
*Indian tonic water was not invented until 1870 to disguise the unpleasant taste of quinine. The first “gin and tonic” made its appearance at British colonial clubs the following year.
*Ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, abolishing slavery in its entirety, would have to wait another half century, until December 1865.
*Katunga will not be found on any modern map. The capital of the Yoruba was destroyed in the civil wars of the early nineteenth century and renamed Oyo. Present-day Oyo is about 100 miles south of Old Oyo, the site of the old city of Katunga.
Chapter Thirteen
THE IVORY MINIATURE
A CONDITION of Laing’s appointment was that his journey to Timbuktu be made under the guidance of that old comrade of Lyon, the Tuareg Hatita ag Khuden. Laing arrived in Ghadames to find the elusive guide (he had refused to go to Tripoli) waiting for him. He reported to Warrington that “I have completely won over Hateeta’s heart with the presents I have given him.” The foremost gift was “from the King of England, a fine scarlet Goldlaced Burnoose which delighted him so much that he gave me his spear and said I will take you safe through Tuarick [Tuareg] country and will afterwards go to Tripoli to see my friend the Consul.”
The Colonial Office’s insistence on Hatita as guide was a surprising stipulation. At the time, little was known about the Tuareg, thought to be a wild, remote, and predatory people. Hatita was unusual, in no way more so than in his inexplicable liking for infidel English explorers. He had associated himself with the British, on and off, for five years, beginning with Lyon in 1820. A later British explorer writing in the 1850s, who knew him only as “a rather tiresome oldster,” described Hatita as “an extremely pacific man in his conduct, and greatly liked for his peacemaking disposition.” Whatever spell he cast on the British, he had cast on his own.
Hatita had offered to accompany Lyon to “the Negro Land” (by which he meant the Hausa territory near Lake Chad). To Oudney and his companions, he had asserted that “he could by his influence alone, conduct us in perfect safety to Timbuctoo, and would answer with his head….” These statements, coming from a much-respected African, were repeated in London and came to the ears of Lord Bathurst, whose heart was set on solving the frustrating mysteries of African exploration. To Bathurst, Hatita’s promises sounded like the words of a prophet, and he came to be viewed in Downing Street with something bordering on reverence: the one guide who could unlock every gate that barred the way to the center of the continent. Thus it transpired that Bathurst insisted that Laing be accompanied by Hatita. It was not a request.
Warrington accordingly summoned Hatita to Tripoli, but nothing could induce him to come. Instead, he joined Laing at Ghadames and agreed to stay with him only as far as Tuat.* To get from Tuat to Timbuktu, he would have had to follow a dangerous road, controlled partly by the Chaamba Arabs, traditional blood enemies of all Tuareg, and partly by two Tuareg tribes (the Hoggar and the Ifora), both sworn enemies of his own tribe, the Ajjer.
Of Hatita’s many services to explorers, the first was to give them a genial welcome, a courtesy rarely available in these hostile lands. He had an engaging facility for adjusting himself to strange European ways. He was skilled in protecting his patrons from the endemic violence to which, as Christians, they were frequently exposed; and from a curiosity so intense it was almost as bad as violence, precluding the most basic privacy. Hatita’s ability to win the confidence of Englishmen gave him a certain cachet among his own people, for while the white men were despised as infidels, their wealth, their arms, and (oddly) their recent reputation for having driven Napoleon out of Egypt accorded them a grudging respect.
Hatita took pride in being called, as he was throughout much of the Sahara, the “Friend of the English” or the “Consul of the English,” and in his old age he even suggested that he actually be appointed British vice-consul at Ghat.
When Laing met Hatita in Ghadames, he was relieved to have another guide he could trust. He was already quite pleased with Babani, in spite of the constant dunning. He wrote to Warrington on September 13, 1825, that
Babany is a man of the most sterling worth, who is to be found to morrow exactly as he is to day; he is quiet, harmless, and inoffensive, but a man of infinite determination withal, as I have had occasion to observe on one or two occasions…. He either is much attached to the English, or he is a better actor than Talma,* for he has shewn so much apparent friendship and performed such disinterested acts of kindness … that I must acknowledge a kind and generous heart. He is a man of mighty importance in Ghadames, being nothing less than its Governor,† a circumstance which I was ignorant of till this morning, but which, on being made acquainted with it, you may be assured did not disappoint me. I am lodged in one of his own houses, a very snug dwelling with a fine garden and extensive yard for my camels, all of which he is to feed at his own expence during the period we sojourn at Ghadames. He is no advocate for extravagance, but rather recommends the semblance of poverty in passing through the country. He thinks it is the surest and safest way of travelling, but in places of importance which we shall have to call at, and where advantage may be likely to arise out of it, he recommends a well timed liberality, and in this respect his ideas correspond exactly with my own.
Despite his optimistic tone, Laing’s hardships were far from over. Rumors were already circulating throughout Ghadames that Laing would proceed eventually to In Salah. This gossip had certainly reached the ears of any potential raiders who might hold up the caravan once it left the city.
And yet, it was not the threat of angry Arabs that now most jeopardized Laing’s mission. Laing’s most difficult trials in Ghadames, once he recovered from his desert crossing, were the tribulations of his heart.
Emma was much on his mind. Warrington made a
n overt effort to prevent Laing’s marriage to his daughter, but there may have been more going on than met the eye. In a strange letter to the Colonial Office written in March 1829, Warrington said that “the life of Major Laing and probably of my daughter, rendered it necessary that I should consent to the marriage previous to his departure. By so doing, and the determined measures I resorted to rendered abortive, thank God, his fatal intentions. I send by this occasion all the original correspondence with Major Laing at the time to Mr. Amyot…. Afterwards Mr. Amyot can commit them to the flames or keep them for me.” A decade later, in July 1840, Warrington said in a letter to a man who was thinking of writing Laing’s biography: “Mr. Amyot is in possession of the correspondence that caused the marriage with my daughter…. But of course one circumstance of a very delicate nature must be suppressed.”
What were Laing’s “fatal intentions” that Warrington had “rendered abortive”? And what was the “circumstance of a very delicate nature” which had to be suppressed? The great amateur English historian E. W. Bovill, who catalogued all of Laing’s papers in the early 1960s, was unable to trace the missing letters to “Mr. Amyot.” Possibly they were destroyed.
Certainly, the set of conditions attendant to Laing’s marriage would have been enough to try the emotions of a less sensitive man. Did the young people, in their precious moments together, have some premonition of the short days allowed them? Did Emma feel that with this gallant, amusing, and lovable man gone from her, with only their “troth plighted,” she might lose him forever? Did she, in fact, hope for a child?
Race for Timbuktu: In Search of Africa's City of Gold Page 20