Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, Volume 2Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, Volume 2
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Africa, West -- Description and travel; Congo River -- Description and travel; Ethnology -- Africa, West
The fatal termination of Park's career in 1805 lulled public
curiosity for a time, but it presently revived. The geographical
mind was still excited by the mysterious stream which evaporation
or dispersion drained into the Lake-swamps of Wangara, and to
this was added not a little curiosity concerning the lamented and
popular explorer's fate. We find instructions concerning Mungo
Park issued even to cruizers collecting political and other
information upon the East African coast; e.g., to Captain Smee,
sent in 1811 by the Bombay Government. His companion, Lieutenant
Hardy, converted Usagára, west of the Zanzibar seaboard, into
"Wangarah," and remarks, "a white man, supposed to be Park, is
said to have travelled here twenty years ago" ("Observations,"
&c.).
About ten years after Mungo Park's death, two expeditions were
fitted out by Government to follow up his discovery. Major Peddie
proceeded to descend the Niger, and Captain Tuckey to ascend the
Congo. We have nothing to say of the former journey except that,
as in the latter, every chief European officer died--Major
Peddie, Captain Campbell, Lieutenant Stokoe, and M. Kummer, the
naturalist. The expedition, consisting of 100 men and 200
animals, reached Kakundy June 13, 1817, and there fell to pieces.
Concerning the Zaire Expedition, which left Deptford on February
16, 1816, a few words are advisable.
The personnel was left to the choice of the leader, Commander J.
K. Tuckey, R. N. (died). There were six commissioned officers--
Lieutenant John Hawkey, R.N. (died); Mr. Lewis Fitz-maurice,
master and surveyor; Mr. Robert Hodder and Mr. Robert Beecraft,
master's mates; Mr. John Eyre, purser (died); and Mr. James
McKerrow, assistant surgeon. Under these were eight petty
officers, four carpenters, two blacksmiths, and fourteen able
seamen. The marines numbered one sergeant, one corporal, and
twelve privates. Grand total of combatants, forty-nine. To these
were added five "savants": Professor Chetien Smith, a Norwegian
botanist and geologist (died); Mr. Cranch, collector of objects
of natural history (died); Mr. Tudor, comparative anatomist
(died); Mr. Galway, Irishman and volunteer naturalist (died); and
"Lockhart, a gardener" (of His Majesty's Gardens, Kew). There
were two Congo negroes, Benjamin Benjamins and Somme Simmons; the
latter, engaged as a cook's mate, proved to be a "prince of the
blood," which did not prevent his deserting for fear of the
bushmen.
The allusions made to Mr. Cranch, a "joined methodist," and a
"self-made man," are not complimentary. "Cranch, I fear," says
Professor Smith, "by his absurd conduct, will diminish the
liberality of the captain towards us: he is like a pointed arrow
to the company." And, again, "Poor Cranch is almost too much the
object of jest; Galway is the principal banterer."In the
Professor's remarks on the" fat purser,"we can detect the
foreigner, who, on such occasions, should never be mixed up with
Englishmen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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