Records of Captain Clapperton's Last Expedition to Africa
With the Subsequent Adventures of the Author

An 1830 account of an expedition through West Africa to follow the River Niger, written by the party's only survivor.

Richard Lander (Author)

9781108030434, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 April 2011

304 pages, 6 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 1.7 cm, 0.39 kg

Hugh Clapperton (1788–1827) was a former naval officer who was determined to explore the course of the River Niger. In 1822 he set out on an expedition to trace the river by approaching it through North Africa, though this proved unsuccessful. Three years later, Clapperton tried again, with plans to start in West Africa, and the young explorer Richard Lander (1804–1834) joined his party. They arrived in Badagry (in present-day Nigeria) and eventually crossed the Niger at Bussa, before reaching Sokoto (in north-west Nigeria), where Clapperton died from an attack of dysentery. Lander returned to England and published this two-volume account of the journey in 1830. Volume 2 describes the death of Clapperton and Lander's eventual return to England, after a series of events including a near-drowning and an offer of marriage to the daughter of a Yoruba king.

10. Character of the Africans in general
11. The author resumes his narrative
12. The author's severe indisposition and distress of mind
13. Pasko
14. The author overtaken at Dunrora by four armed horsemen from Zeg Zeg, who force him to accompany them back to Zaria
15. The author becoming entangled, whilst crossing a river, in the stirrups of his horse's saddle, is thrown from its back, and narrowly escapes drowning
16. Ebo the celebrated fat Eunuch
17. Novel method adopted by Europeans for conveying slaves on board their vessels
18. The fetish-huts and tree at Badagry
19. Captain Laing, of the Brig Maria, of London, hearing that an Englishman was at Badagry, comes from Whydah to fetch the Author.

Subject Areas: African history [HBJH]