THE NIGER RIVER

Evening Star, Issue 20510, 14 June 1930, Page 4

THE NIGER RIVER

UNVEILING A MYSTERY A VENTURE OF 1830 . [A. C. Borns, in ‘The Times.’] In January. 1830, two brothers, Richard and John Lander, left England for West Africa to explore the Lower Niger and to ascertain at what point this great river entered the sen. They wore the last of a long lino of adventurers who, for some forty years, had sought to solve the mystery of the Niger. Nearly every one of their predecessors had perished, a victim to the climate or to the hostility of the tribes, and the few survivors had returned baffled.

That a great river called the Niger existed in the western Sudan was well known'to ancient geographers, but the wildest • theories wore held- as to the direction in which it flowed and where it entered the sea, if, indeed, it did anything so commonplace. _At first it was believed that the Niger flowed from somewhere in the middle of Africa to the west coast, and that the Senegal, Gambia, and other rivers were but the mouths of a greater stream. Later it was suspected, that the river might flow in the opposite direction—rthat is, from west to east—but it was not until Mungo Park saw it, in 1796, “as broad as the Thames at Westminster, and flowing slowly to the eastward,” that this could be" confirmed. Mungo Park reached the Niger, however, at a pc A t about 2,00 U miles from its- mouth, a »1 the .question, of its termination was still unsettled. In 1805 the British Government despatched an expedition of fortythree men, under Park’s command, to solve the problem, hut the whole party perished without result. Other adventurous spirits followed where Park had led. hut nearly all of them died, and none succeeded in the quest. At last the Government and the public alike wearied of the fruitless outlay of lives and money, and in the absence of reliable evidence still more fantastic theories arose. Some made tho Niger a tributary of tho Nile, others joined it to tho 'Congo. One school believed that it flowed into a largo swamp in the interior, while others took it for a long and partially subterranean excursion across tho Sahara into the Mediterranean. The correct solution—that it flowed into tho Gulf of Guinea—was held by two men only, a West Indian planter named M'Queeu and a German named Rciehard; their idea, however, was laughed to scorn, and it was indeed difficult to see how the river could pass the- barrier of the Kong Mountains, which were believed to separate the northern part of what is now Nigeria from the coastal region. It was only realised later that those mountains did not, in fact, exist. INHOSPITABLE LAND. Nor was it remarkable that tho numerous “rivers” flowing into tho Gulf of Guinea were not identified as mouths of the Niger. Spread over a large area, and winding through dense mangrove forests,, the streams of tho delta appeared insignificant and unworthy of connection with the great river. Slave dealers and legitimate traders had visited these “rivers” for centuries, but it was not easy for sailing ships to navigate the narrow channels of the delta against the current, and boat expeditions would, of course, have been at the mercy of the savage ’inhabitants of'the country.’ There was, moreover, little incentive to exploration., Slaves and palm-oil were easily obtained from the coastal tribes, and tropical diseases at that time not understood, and therefore deadly, discouraged any prolonged stay in this inhospitable land; The men who came to the Guinea Coast in those early days came there to make money quickly. They w«Sie engaged in a great gamble and the stake was their own lives, but there was no occasion to increase the odds by unnecessary enterprise.

The Lander brothers were Cornisiimen, of humble birth and'little'education. Tho older brother, Richard, had, ' however, already served his apprenticeship in African exploration, when he \jfent as servant to Captain Clappcrton on that officers’ second expedition. In his first expedition Clapperton had crossed tho Sahara from Tripoli with Major Denham and other companions, but although’ he reached ’ Benin and Sokoto ho failed to reach the Niger. In his second expedition, in 1825, ho sot out'from Badagri, on tho Guinea Coast, and crossed the Niger, but ho and all the others' of his party except Lander perished’in the country. Lander himself escaped with the- utmost difficulty, thanks to his courage and resource, and nothing daunted by past failures lie tendered ,his services to the British. Government for a further attempt to penetrate the mystery of the Niger. His services were accepted, but the niggardly terms offered seem to show that the Government was neither enthusiastic nor optimistic. Lander was to receive a gratuity of £IOO on his return, while an allowance of £25 a quarter was to be paid to his wife for one year. John Lander, who volunteered to accompany his brother, was refused either salary or reward. “OUR PAINFUL JOURNEY.” The brothers arrived at Badagri on March 22, 1830, and on June 17 they reached Bussa,- where Mungo Pari: had perished twenty-five years earlier. Here they were hospitably received by the local chief, who seemed, however, in no hurry-to hell) them on their way. Canoes and paddlers wore necessary but were not at first forthcoming, and the Landers chafed under tho needless procrastination. They were, moreover, far from well. As they stated in their own account of tho expedition;— Throughout nearly the whole of our painful journey wo were both indisposed in a greater or less degree. In short, a very few (lays only had elapsed after our landing at Badagri when we began to feel the debilitating effects of the African climate, and to experience a degree of languor which not even .the.warmest enthusiasm could wholly overcome Our spirits often sank under the depressing influence of this powerful adversary, whose inroads on our constitutions we had no means ol re-

sisting. . The traveller oi' to-day, who can reach the Niger by a comfortable train from Lagos in loss than twenty-four hours, has no • conception ot the difficulties of travel in West Africa a century ago. and the dangers ami hardships with which the explorer had to contend. Even now the effects of the climate on the constitution of a wlnte man are considerable, though a hotter understanding of tropical diseases has greatly reduced the mortality from them.' In those days the traveller took with him none of the things which would now ho considered indispensable to comfort and, indeed, to life itself, and, being completely in the power of the natives, ho had to endure with what grace he could the maddening doays winch native etiejuette demanded. At last, however, on September 20. the Landers were allowed to travel down the river, in two canoes, on the final stage of their great adventure. On October 25 they passed the confluence with the Benue, the largest tributary of the Niger, where the town ol

Lokoja now stands, and from this point the river flowed steadily in a southerly direction, making it more and more evident to the travellers that it terminated in the Gulf of Guinea. All seemed to be going well, and the successful end of their journey was almost in sight, when disaster overtook them. Near Asaba, some 200 miles from the sea, they met a flotilla of fifty armed canoes, flying flags which were obvious imitations of the British ensign, and manned by negroes dressed, more or less, in European fashion. The men in the canoes wore [bos, up the river to trade or plunder as circumstances dictated, and the Landers were an easy prey. They were soon overpowered anc\ carried off to the tbo chief, from whom they wore ransomed later by “King Boy” of Brass, who promised to deliver them on board an English brig which was then lying in the River Nun (one of the mouths of the Niger) provided he received sufficient remuneration. Confident that their fellow-countrymen would pay the sum demanded, the Landers promised him a, suitable reward, and fondly believed that their troubles were at an end. John Lander was loft as a hostage at Boy’s town, while Boy himself took r.icha'rd to the Nun River and went on board the brig to receive his reward. '

The master of the brig, a man named Lake, gave them a chilly welcome and refused to pay anything to Boy. After much discussion he consented to take the Landers away if Richard could get his brother aboard, hut ho flatly declined to pay anything by way of ransom for them. Hoy was at length per-

suaded to go for John Lander in the hope of getting some payment on his return, but Lake had no intention of redeeming- the promises of tho Landers and sailed away with them, leaving Boy unpaid. The British Government, however, discharged the debt to Boy not long after. The brothers were put ashore at tho island of Fernando Po. and after a Jong and tedious voyage reached England on Juno 9, 1831, having solved tho problem which had baffled Europe for so long. Join), Lander obtained a small Government post in England, and died in 1830 from a disease contracted in Africa. Richard Lander returned to the Niger with another expedition and was fatally wounded bv natives in the delta in 1834. Railways and motor roads have now made river transport less important than it was, but for many decades the Niger, and its great tributary the Benue, afforded the only means of communication with the hinterland of Nigeria, and the waterway that the Landers found was invaluable to the struggling British administration ol the country in its early years. _ On Jebba Island, in the Niger, some eighty miles below Bussa, stands a monument to Mungo Park and Richard Lander, the men who traced the true course of the mysterious river and gavo_ their lives in return for their discoveries.