The Race for Timbuktu: The Story of Gordon Laing and the Race by Frank T. Kryza

Author:Frank T. Kryza [Kryza, Frank T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Travel, Special Interest, Africa, Adventure
ISBN: 9780062030375
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2011-03-29T00:00:00+00:00

WITH PACKING CRATES FULL of rich gifts for Sultan Bello, the Clapperton party embarked for Africa from Spithead at the end of August. Clapperton had rested for less than ninety days, but he seemed confident to go to one of the world’s most notorious death traps (the west coast of Africa was not called the “white man’s grave” for nothing), with his strength still sapped by his first expedition. After pursuing and capturing several Spanish slavers along the coast and sending their cargoes to Sierra Leone (where the slaves were freed), the Brazen reached Whydah on November 23.

Dr. Dickson was put ashore to explore the interior of Dahomey. Dickson had such a vitriolic temper that Clapperton, who had the same problem, warned him: “The conquest of the people to you will be guided solely by your behaviour toward them. Set a guard over your temper, my dear Dickson, and never let it lead you into error.” It was unheeded advice, for news later reached Clapperton that at a village called Shar, Dickson “had a serious misunderstanding with a party of natives, and his life being threatened by its chief, he was so violently exasperated that he attempted to throttle the individual; which, being observed by his followers, they fell upon the unfortunate doctor, overcame and slew him.” The story must have reminded Clapperton of his own outburst at the grave of Dr. Oudney.

In December, the Brazen landed the rest of the expedition at the slave-trading station of Badagri, 60 miles up the coast. Leaving the Brazen, Lander put a bugle to his lips and played “Over the Hills and Far Away” as sailors on the decks cheered. The explorers went over the side into canoes ready to take them through the terrific Atlantic surf to shore, an event that nearly ended in tragedy. One of the canoes overturned and some of the party might have drowned but for the prompt action of two Africans.

Clapperton’s party left Badagri for the long haul overland to Sokoto—a distance of 475 miles as the crow flies, twice that on foot. The explorers engaged a British trader named Houtson to guide them. There was no sign of Sultan Bello’s messengers, but Clapperton was not discouraged. He was three months late, after all. Houtson promised to take them to Katunga,* about 150 miles north of Badagri, through friendly Yoruba country. They took canoes for the first leg of the journey along the Lagos River. When the Lagos had taken them as far inland as it could, they went into the great triple-canopy rain forest on foot.

The explorers immediately made an elementary mistake, inexplicable given Clapperton’s earlier experiences in Africa. Though he had previously crossed deserts and savanna and had little personal knowledge of the vast, gloomy wilderness near the ocean, he must have suspected something, as all Englishmen did, of the damp “night humors and miasmic vapors” so feared in this area. But lured by the astonishing beauty of the tropical night, he and his men slept out in the open.

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