RECOVERY OF A PILLOW.

233

kind of use to any one. Yet, nothwithstand.ng their uselessness, the man is reported to have kept the books carefully concealed in his house till the arrival of Captain Clapperton at Wowow; but when he found that this officer made no inquiries for such books, he neglected to pay any farther attention to them, and they were destroyed shortly after, or, to use his own words, 'they dropped or fell to pieces.' By the description which has been given of one of the books alluded to, I am inclined to believe that it must have been either Mr. Park's Journal, or a book of manuscripts of some sort. Thus have all our inquiries for the recovery of the lost papers of this traveller ended in disappointment, even when we had made almost sure of them, and our feelings excited to their highest pitch on more than one occasion, we have felt all the bitterness of hope sud. denly extinguished."

Mr. John Lander afterward succeeded in procuring a stuffed pillow, which had probably been used by Mr. Park for a seat, and within which was enclosed a small Arabic manuscript, supposed to be a native charm. The recovery of it is thus related in the journal.

"Friday, August 20th.-The widow Zuma has left a son at Wowow, who is about thirty years of age, and is suffered to reside here only because he is at variance with his captious mother, and disapproves and condemns all her measures. This young man has been a constant daily visiter to me, and brings me occasionally a dish of pounded yam and palm oil, a few goora-nuts, or some such trifle. At our request he has busied himself surprisingly in endeavouring to procure information

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RECOVERY OF A PILLOW

respecting the papers of Mr. Park. Though nearly blind, Abba (for that is his name) is a handsame and intelligent young man, of an equable temper, and of a mild, modest, and amiable dispo. sition, which has rendered him a great favourite with us. From the information with which he has supplied us, we learn that the late King of Wowow, who was father to the present ruler, became possessed of much of Mr. Park's property, among which was a great quantity of guns and ammuni. tion, particularly musket-balls, which we have seen. Before this monarch's dissolution, he left them to be divided among his sons. Abba ascertained yesterday that a large fat woman belonging to the king had a great pillow, which her deceased husband had snatched, among other things, from the Niger, near Boossa, and with which he had fled to Wowow, where he continued to reside till his death. This pillow, as it is called, had perhaps been used for a seat, for it was covered with bul lock's hide, and strengthened by ribs of iron; but the covering having been worn into holes with age and use, it was yesterday pulled to pieces by the owner, who found it to be stuffed with rags and cloth, cut into small bits. In the centre of the pillow, however, to the woman's surprise, she discov. ered a little bag of striped satin, and feeling something like a book, as she says, within it, she was afraid to open it herself, but presently sent word to Abba of the circumstance, who forthwith came and imparted it to me, bringing the little bag along with him. On opening it, I found a little iron frame, round which had been wound, with much ingenuity and care, a great quantity of cotton

AND A NATIVE CHARM.

235

thread, which encompassed it, perhaps, not less than ten thousand times; and, in consequence of its entangled state, it was provokingly troublesome to take off. Affixed to the little iron instrument, which is said to be a child's handcuff of foreign manufacture, and underneath the cotton, was an old manuscript, which, according to Abba's opinion, is a native charm. But as I mistrusted his knowledge of the Arabic language, and doubted his ability to give a proper interpretation to the contents of the paper, in my own judgment I was induced to believe it to be neither more nor less than a charm of some kind. Therefore I purchased the manuscript, because it might be of greater consequence than I imagined, and because the bag in which it had been enveloped was of European satin, and the ink with which it had been written very different from that which is used by the Arabs, resembling our own so closely that the difference in the colour of both cannot be distinguished. were advised by no means to intimate to the king the nature of Abba's inquiries, for the people are afraid of him, and declare that if he knew of any individual that had secreted ever so trifling a part of Mr. Park's property, he would be beheaded without mercy.

We

Such were the results of the Landers' exertions to recover the papers of Park. At a subsequent period of the journey, during a visit paid to the King of Wowow, Richard Lander discovered, among that monarch's collection of charms, a small edition of Watt's Hymns, on one of the blank covers of which was written, "Alexander Anderson, Royal Artillery Hospital, Gosport, 1804." He also mentions that

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HISTORICAL SKETCH.

he saw a note from Lady Dalkeith to Park, of the same date as that from Mr. and Mrs. Watson, and acknowledging the receipt of some drawings from

him.

CHAPTER XX.

Historical Sketch of later Discoveries.-Four Hypotheses concerning the Termination of the Niger.-Hypothesis of its Identity with the Congo.-Park's Reasons in support thereof. -Reichard's Hypothesis of its Termination in the Gulf of Guinea.-Tuckey's Expedition to the Congo.-Clapperton's two Journeys.-Expedition of the Brothers Lander.-Their Success.

[1805-1830.]

AN account of the life of Mungo Park may be appropriately concluded by a brief sketch of the subsequent history of the question concerning the termination of the Niger, and a statement of the successive steps by which its solution was effected five-and-twenty years after his death. His first expedition made us acquainted with the course of the Niger from Bammakoo to Silla, a distance of about 350 miles, throughout the whole of which the river was found to flow, roughly speaking, from west to east. The grand object of his second expedition was to trace the rest of its course from Silla, and to ascertain where this large river ended; an achievement, of which it was said by Park himself, that, "considered in a commercial doint of view, it was second only to the discovery

HYPOTHESES CONCERNING THE NIGER. 237

of the Cape of Good Hope, and in a geographical point of view, it was certainly the greatest discovery that remained to be made in this world."

The failure of Park's second expedition left us still in ignorance concerning the course of the Niger below Silla; and for several years no farther attempt to dispel that ignorance was made. In the mean while, the subject, exciting much attention, was freely discussed; and the information concerning it being vague and scanty, the conjectures were bold and numerous in proportion. The question which Park had failed to settle was looked upon as one of the grand geographical problems of the age; and men reasoned and speculated about the termination of the Niger, just as they reasoned and speculated about a northwest passage from the Atlantic into the Pacific. The different hypothe. ses which prevailed about thirty years ago were four in number. Three of them existed, and were stoutly maintained by their respective supporters, during Park's lifetime; the fourth was started three years after his death, and, singularly enough, has proved to be the correct one. The four hypotheses are the following:

1. That the Niger, after leaving Silla, continued to flow towards the east, across the heart of Af rica, until it joined the Nile; or, in other words, that the Niger was identical with that great western branch of the Niger called the Bahr-el-Abrad, or White River, of which the sources then were, as indeed they still are, undiscovered.

2. That the Niger, after leaving Silla, continued to flow towards the east until, somewhere in the interior of Africa, it emptied itself into lakes, dis