On the 7th December 1825 the party left the coast. Hardly, however, had they got beyond earshot of the Atlantic rollers, when it seemed as if the fate which had befallen so many earlier ventures was about to overtake Clapperton’s also. Through imprudently sleeping in the open air, they were all attacked by fever. Undismayed and unsubdued, they nevertheless pushed on, staggering forward as best they might. But there were limits to their defiance of disease. Morrison gave in first, and turning to retrace his way to the coast, died on the road. Captain Pearce was the next victim, and he, like the soldier who falls in battle with his face to the foe, dropped on the road, struggling onward to the last. Though now deprived of both his friends, Clapperton was not yet absolutely alone. He had with him an English servant named Richard Lander, who, with a spirit worthy of such a master, faced all the perils and hardships of the route. Happily, however, by the end of the month the deadly coast belt was safely passed, and healthier lands lay before them. They entered the populous country of Yoruba, with its teeming population, its well cultivated fields, enormous towns, and general air of prosperity. Through Yoruba they passed in a semi-triumphal procession, with no greater trouble to face than the anxiety of the king to keep the white men in his own capital, or the siren wiles of the widow Zuma, who, with her colossal charms, sought to woo them from the path of danger and toil to the flower-strewn haunts of love and ease. Heedless alike, however, of kingly favours and full-fed charms--the widow being fat and twenty--Clapperton held on his way, as also did Lander, who was as little to be seduced from his master’s side as his master from the path of duty. Clapperton had hoped to reach the Niger at Nupé, but news of war and bloodshed in that region caused him to deviate from his intended route and strike the great river somewhat higher up. As the fates would have it, he reached the Niger at the very point where Park had ended at once his voyage and his career. Clapperton’s reception seemed to belie the story of Amadi Fatuma as to the manner of Park’s death, but a little investigation proved beyond a doubt the truth of its chief particulars. The natives had attacked him under a misconception as to his nationality, and every one spoke with regret of the unhappy catastrophe. The place was pointed out where the boat and crew were lost. At this point the river is divided into three channels, none more than twenty yards broad when the water is low. The left branch is the only safe one for canoes, the other two being broken up by rocks into dangerous whirlpools and rapids. Bussa itself stands on an island about three miles long by one and a half broad.