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
"But I have a brother and eight people at Brass Town," rejoined Lander,
"and if you do not intend to pay King Boy, at least persuade him to
bring them here, or else he will poison or starve my brother before I
can get any assistance from a man-of-war, and sell all my people."
"If you can get them on board," replied the captain, "I will take them
away; but as I have told you before, you do not get a flint from me."
At last Lander persuaded Boy to go back and fetch his brother and his
people. The king at first declined to do so without receiving some
payment on account, and it was only with difficulty that he was induced
to forego this demand. When Lake found out that Lander's servants were
able-bodied men, who could replace the sailors he had lost by death or
who were down with fever, he relented a little. This yielding mood did
not, however, last long, for he declared that if John and his people
did not come in three days he would start without them. In vain did
Richard prove to him beyond a doubt that if he did so the white men
would be sold as slaves. The captain would not listen to him, only
answering, "I can't help it; I shall wait no longer." Such inhumanity
as this is fortunately very rare; and a wretch who could thus insult
those not merely his equals, but so much his superiors, ought to be
pilloried. At last, on the 24th November, after weathering a strong
breeze which made the passage of the bar very rough and all but
impossible, John Lander arrived on board. He had had to bear a good
many reproaches from Boy, for whom, it must be confessed, there was
some excuse; for had he not at his own cost rescued the brothers and
their people from slavery, brought them down in his own canoe, and fed
them, although very badly, all on the strength of their promise to pay
him with as much beef and rum as he could consume? whereas he was,
after all, roughly received by Lake, told that his advances would never
be refunded, and treated as a thief. Certainly he had cause to complain
and any one else would have made his prisoners pay dearly for the
disappointment of so many hopes, and the loss of so much money.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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