Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 3.: The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth CenturyVerne, Jules
History
Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 3.: The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century
Verne, Jules
Discoveries in geography; Explorers; Voyages and travels
"To my great satisfaction," says Lander, "I immediately recognized the
box containing our books, and one of my brother's journals; the
medicine-chest was by its side, but both were filled with water. A
large carpet bag, containing all our wearing apparel, was lying cut
open, and deprived of its contents, with the exception of a shirt, a
pair of trousers, and a waistcoat. Many valuable articles which it had
contained were gone. The whole of my journal, with the exception of a
note-book with remarks from Rabba to this place, was lost. Four guns,
one of which had been the property of the late Mr. Park, four
cutlasses, and two pistols, were gone. Nine elephants' tusks, the
finest I had seen in the country, which had been given us by the kings
of Wow-wow and Boussa; a quantity of ostrich feathers, some handsome
leopard skins, a great variety of seeds, all our buttons, cowries, and
needles, which were necessary for us to purchase provisions with, all
were missing, and said to have been sunk in the river."
This was like going down in port. After crossing Africa from Badagry to
Boussa, escaping all the dangers of navigating the Niger, getting free
from the hands of so many rapacious chiefs, to be shipwrecked six day's
journey from the sea, to be made slaves of or condemned to death just
on the eve of making known to Europe the results of so many sufferings
endured, so many dangers escaped, so many obstacles happily surmounted!
To have traced the course of the Niger from Boussa, to be on the point
of determining the exact position of its mouth and then to find
themselves stopped by wretched pirates was really too much, and bitter
indeed were the reflections of the brothers during the interminable
palaver upon their fate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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