H. Clapperton - Journal of a Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa from the Bight of Benin to Soccatoo

JOURNAL

OF A

SECOND EXPEDITION

INTO THE

INTERIOR OF AFRICA

FROM

THE BIGHT OF BENIN TO SOCCATOO

BY

HUGH CLAPPERTON

TO WHICH IS ADDED

THE JOURNAL OF RICHARD LANDER

FROM KANO TO THE SEA-COAST, PARTLY BY
A MORE EASTERN ROUTE

FRANK CASS & CO. LTD.

Short Sketch

of the

Life of Captain Clapperton

By Lieutenant-Colonel Clapperton.

C APTAIN H UGH C LAPPERTON was born in Annan, Dumfries-shire, in the year 1788. His grandfather, Robert Clapperton, M. D., was a man of considerable knowledge, as a classical scholar, and in his profession. He first studied at Edinburgh; but as, in those days, the continental colleges were considered superior in medicine and surgery, he went to Paris, and there studied for some time. On his return to his native country, he married Elizabeth Campbell, second cousin of Colonel Archibald Campbell of Glenlyon; and soon after settled in Dumfries-shire, at a place called Crowden Nows, where he remained until George Clapperton (the father of our traveller), and another son were born. He afterwards removed to Lochmaben, where he had an increase to his family of four sons and one daughter. All the sons became medical men, except the youngest and the only survivor, who entered his Majestys service, in the beginning of 1793, as a second lieutenant of marines. His eldest son, George Clapperton, married young to a daughter of John Johnstone, proprietor of the lands of Thorniwhate and Lochmaben Castle, and settled in Annan, where he was a considerable time the only medical man of repute in the place, and performed many operations and cures which spread his fame over the borders of England and Scotland. His father bestowed a good education upon him, which proved so useful a passport to public favour, that he might have made a fortune; but, unfortunately, he was, like his father, careless of money. He married a second wife, and was the father of no fewer than twenty-one children. Of the fruit of the first marriage, he had six sons and one daughter who grew to men and womens estate. All the sons entered his Majestys service, the youngest of whom was Captain Clapperton, the African traveller, and the subject of this memoir. In his person he resembled his father greatly, but was not so tall by two inches, being five feet eleven inches; had great breadth of chest and expansion of shoulders, and otherwise proportionably strong; and was a handsome, athletic, powerful man. He received no classical education, and could do little more than read and write, when he was put under the tuition of Mr. Bryce Downie, a man of general knowledge, but chiefly celebrated for his mathematical abilities. He remained with Mr. Downie until he required a knowledge of practical mathematics, including navigation and trigonometry. He was found an apt scholar and an obliging boy by Mr. Downie, whose attention was never forgot by the traveller; as he expressed a great wish, when he arrived the first journey from Africa, that he could have had time to see his native country, and shake his old master once more by the hand. Captain Clapperton left Mr. Downie about the age of thirteen; when, by his own wish, he was bound an apprentice to the owner of a vessel of considerable burthen, trading between Liverpool and North America. After making several voyages in that vessel, he either left her, or was impressed into his Majestys service, and was put on board a Tender then lying at Liverpool, which vessel carried him round to Plymouth, where he with others were draughted on board of his Majestys ship Gibraltar, of eighty guns. He did not remain long in that ship, as in 1806 he arrived at Gibraltar in a naval transport; from which he was impressed, with others, on board his Majestys frigate Renomme, Captain Sir Thomas Livingston. Opportunely for our traveller, at that time his Majestys ship Saturn, Captain Lord Amelias Beauclerc (belonging to Lord Collingwoods fleet off Cadiz), arrived for the purpose of watering and refitting; and our traveller, learning that his uncle (now Lieut.-Col. Clapperton) was captain of royal marines on board the Saturn, sent him a letter describing his situation in the Renomme. The uncle having been an old messmate of Sir Thomass, when both were lieutenants at the Cape of Good Hope many years before, made it his business immediately to see Sir Thomas; and, through his intercession, Sir Thomas very kindly put our traveller, for the first time, upon the quarter-deck as a midshipman. The Renomme very soon after left Gibraltar for the Mediterranean; and, when on the coast of Spain, had occasion to send boats to attack some enemys vessels on shore, Clapperton, being in one of the boats, was slightly, as he considered it, wounded in the head, which, however, afterwards gave him much annoyance. He remained in the Renomme, with Sir Thomas, until she returned to England, and was paid off, in the year 1808. He then joined his Majestys ship Venerable, Captain King, in the Downs, as a midshipman, where he did not remain long, having heard that Captain Briggs was going to the East Indies in the Clorinde frigate, and wishing to go to that country, he applied for his discharge, that he might enter with Captain Briggs; but he could not accomplish it before the Clorinde had sailed from Portsmouth; he was ordered, however, (by the admiral) to have a passage in a ship going to the East Indies. In the course of the voyage, they fell in with a ship in great distress, it then blowing a gale of wind; but humanity required assistance, if it could be given. A boat was ordered to be got ready, and Clapperton to go in her. He declared to his messmates his decided opinion that the boat could not possibly live in the sea that was then running, but that it was not for him to question the orders of his superior officer. On pushing off, he told his messmates to share equally among them any articles belonging to him, and bade them good bye. The boat had scarcely put off from the ship when she swamped, and as no assistance could be rendered, all hands perished, with the exception of two; one of whom was Clapperton, who, under such trying circumstances, encouraged and assisted his only surviving companion till his own strength failed him. Among others, he had previously struggled hard to save a warrant officer; but finding himself nearly exhausted, he was obliged to desist, and he perished. They then dropped off, one after the other, until the bowman and Clapperton were the only two remaining out of the whole boats crew. The latter then made use of a common sea expression to the bowman, Thank God, I am not the Jonah! meaning that he was not, by his bad conduct in life, the cause of the Almighty visiting them with his vengeance. The bowman seconded him in the exclamation, and they kept cheering each other until the gale so far abated, that another boat was got out and sent to their relief.