Journal of a second expedition into the interior of Africa, from the Bight of Benin to Soccatoo : $b To which is added, the journal of Richard Lander from Kano to the sea-coast, partly by a more eastern route.Clapperton, Hugh
History
Journal of a second expedition into the interior of Africa, from the Bight of Benin to Soccatoo : $b To which is added, the journal of Richard Lander from Kano to the sea-coast, partly by a more eastern route.
Clapperton, Hugh
Sudan (Region) -- Description and travel
My master grew weaker daily, and the weather was insufferably hot,
the thermometer being, in the coolest place, 107 at twelve in the
morning, and 109 at three in the afternoon. At his own suggestion
I made a couch for him outside the hut, in the shade, and placed
a mat for myself by its side. For five successive days I took him
in my arms from his bed in the hut to the couch outside, and back
again at sunset, after which time he was too much debilitated to
be lifted from the bed on which he lay. He attempted to write once,
and but once, during his illness; but before paper and ink could be
brought him, he had sunk back on his pillow, completely exhausted
by his ineffectual attempt to sit up in his bed. Fancying by various
symptoms he had been poisoned, I asked him one day whether he thought
that, in any of his visits to the Arabs or Tuaricks, any poisonous
ingredients had been put into the camel’s milk they had given him,
of which he was particularly fond. He replied, “No, my dear boy;
no such thing has been done, I assure you. Do you remember,” he
continued, “that when on a shooting excursion at Magaria, in the
early part of February, after walking the whole of the day, exposed
to the scorching rays of the sun, I was fatigued, and lay down under
the branches of a tree for some time? The earth was soft and wet,
and from that hour to the present I have not been free from cold:
this has brought on my present disorder, from which, I believe,
I shall never recover.”
For twenty days my poor master remained in a low and distressed
state. He told me he felt no pain; but this was spoken only to
comfort me, for he saw I was dispirited. His sufferings must have been
acute. During this time he was gradually, but perceptibly, declining;
his body, from being robust and vigorous, became weak and emaciated,
and indeed was little better than a skeleton. I was the only person,
with one exception, he saw in his sickness. Abderachman, an Arab
from Fezzan, came to him one day, and wished to pray with him,
after the manner of his countrymen, but was desired to leave the
apartment instantly. His sleep was uniformly short and disturbed,
and troubled with frightful dreams. In them he frequently reproached
the Arabs aloud with much bitterness; but being an utter stranger
to the language, I did not understand the tenor of his remarks. I
read to him daily some portions of the New Testament, and the
ninety-fifth Psalm, which he was never weary of listening to, and
on Sundays added the church service, to which he invariably paid the
profoundest attention. The constant agitation of mind and exertions
of body I had myself undergone for so long a time, never having in
a single instance slept out of my clothes, weakened me exceedingly,
and a fever came on not long before my master’s death, which hung
upon me for fifteen days, and ultimately brought me to the very
verge of the grave. Finding myself unequal to pay that attention to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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