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
For all this, however, Boy brought John Lander safely to the brig.
Captain Lake received the traveller pretty cordially, but declared his
intention of making the king go back without so much as an obolus. Poor
Boy was full of the most gloomy forebodings. His haughty manner was
exchanged for an air of deprecating humility. An abundant meal was
placed before him, but he scarcely touched it. Richard Lander,
disgusted with the stinginess and bad faith of Lake, and unable to keep
his promises, ransacked all his possessions; and finding, at last, five
silver bracelets and a sabre of native manufacture, which he had
brought from Yarriba, he offered these to Boy, who accepted them.
Finally, the king screwed up courage enough to make his demand to the
captain, who, in a voice of thunder which it was difficult to believe
could have come from such a feeble body, declined to accede to it,
enforcing his refusal with a shower of oaths and threats, such as made
Boy, who saw, moreover, that the vessel was ready to sail, beat a hasty
retreat, and hurry off to his canoe.
Thus ended the vicissitudes of the Brothers Lander's journey. They were
in some danger in crossing the bar, but that was their last. They
reached Fernando Po, and then the Calabar River where they embarked on
the _Carnarvon_ for Rio Janeiro, at which port Admiral Baker, then
commanding the station, got them a passage on board a transport-ship.
On the 9th June they disembarked at Portsmouth. Their first care, after
sending an account of their journey to Lord Goderich, then Colonial
Secretary, was to inform that official of the conduct of Captain Lake,
conduct which was of a nature to compromise the credit of the English
Government. Orders were at once given by the minister for the payment
of the sums agreed upon, which were perfectly just and reasonable.
Thus was completely and finally solved the geographical problem which
had for so many centuries occupied the attention of the civilized
world, and been the subject of so many different conjectures. The
Niger, or as the natives call it, the Joliba, or Quorra, is not
connected with the Nile, and does not lose itself in the desert sands
or in the waters of Lake Tchad; it flows in a number of different
branches into the ocean on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea, at the
point known as Cape Formosa. The entire glory of this discovery,
foreseen though it was by scientific men, belongs to the Brothers
Lander. The vast extent of country traversed by the Niger between
Yaoorie and the sea was completely unknown before their journey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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