After all that I have said on this subject, the charge of having assumed too much consequence in speaking so familiarly of Capt. Clapperton, will not surely be brought against me; yet in conversation I have heard it asserted that this sin was committed in my printed journal; but the remark needs no refutation. I have not chosen to alter this imputed consequence in the following narrative, simply because there is no apparent necessity for doing so; and in this opinion the generality of my countrymen will, I am confident, agree with me.

My description of the savage manners and horrid barbarities of the people of Badagry, at the celebration of their monthly sacrifices, &c. is by no means exaggerated. At present these seem unknown to Englishmen; and my reasons for not relating them before are already given. I had no intention of having my Journal printed, and therefore did not study to render the perusal of it interesting by inserting in it observations that did not come strictly within the compass of the plan which I had originally laid down for myself.

In the composition of the following pages I must acknowledge my obligations to a younger brother, and (with the exception of the customary revision of the printed sheets) to him alone. I should feel both pleasure and pride in expressing, in this place, my gratitude for even a hint received from any other quarter; but as this has not, even in a solitary instance, been the case, I have no such thanks to offer. Although unused to composition, my brother devoted, during the past summer, the little leisure which relaxation from his daily labour afforded him, to the office of copying my notes and observations, and putting them into something like arrangement. Having become impressed with my thoughts, he has “turned them to shape,” and, entering warmly into my feelings, he has depicted my emotions, even as I felt them; and the public will best discern whether they are true to nature or not.

I beg to introduce this little Work to the notice of my countrymen with the greatest humility. They will not judge of it by too severe a standard; they will not—I am sure they will not—accuse me of presumption in my feeble attempts to portray the manners and peculiarities of a strange people. I have done the utmost to render the perusal of my Narrative agreeable; and to give the reader a correct idea of the state of society in the interior of Africa. It were unreasonable to expect that my limited knowledge should permit me to give a learned or laboured description of regions which had never before been visited by Europeans; yet I repeat I have done the best my power would allow; and no one will, I think, feel any disposition to question the truth of this declaration.

THE AUTHOR.

TRURO, October, 1829.

* * * * *

Since the preceding introductory remarks were written, His Majesty’s Government have engaged me to proceed to Fundah, and trace the river from thence to Benin; so that before the public will be put in possession of the following Narrative, in all probability, I shall be on my way to the Western Coast of Africa. In this new undertaking I shall be accompanied only by my brother (John Lander), whose assistance in the composition of this work I have already acknowledged; and if energy and perseverance can avail us any thing, I have the best reasons for believing that it will prove as successful as my most sanguine expectations lead me to hope that it will. At all events, nothing shall be wanting on our parts to accomplish the object in view. If we be so unfortunate as to fail in the object, I may say with confidence and without vanity, that it shall not be attributed to a want of proper spirit and enterprise; since we have made the fixed determination to risk every thing, even life itself, towards its final accomplishment. We shall endeavour to conform ourselves, as nearly as possible, to the manners and habits of the natives; we will not mock their blind superstition, but respect it; we will not scoff at their institutions, but bow to them; we will not condemn their prejudices, but pity them. In fine, we shall do all in our power to ward off suspicion as to the integrity of our motives, and the innocency of our intentions; and this cannot be done more effectually than by mingling with the people in their general amusements and diversions. Confidence in ourselves, and in them, will be our best panoply; and an English Testament our safest fetish. Clothed in this armour, by the blessing of God, we have not much to fear; but if, by any casualty or unforeseen misfortune, we perish in Africa, and are seen no more, even then our fate will not be more dismal than that of many of our predecessors in the same pursuit, whose gallant enterprising spirits have sunk into darkness, without a voice to record their melancholy end. If this should be our case, our countrymen may, perhaps, be moved to respect our memory; and, at all events, it is some consolation to know that the gap we may make in society will scarcely be observed at all; or, if observed, soon filled up:

“For we to the world are like a drop of water

That in the ocean falls.”

London, Dec. 1829.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Portrait of Richard Lander Frontispiece.

Pelicans feeding their young vol. II. p. 16

Funeral of Captain Clapperton 78

Fainting Scene 93

Crossing the streams at Yariba 215

Heads of Natives with Tattoo marks 218

Ordeal by Poison 257

* * * * *

ERRATA.

Page 89, for Kang read Kong.

Page 156, omit the preposition “to” after “lead me.”

From p. 134 to p. 269, for Soccasoo read Soccatoo.

At the head of chap. II. p. 29, for Cape Coast read Papoe.

SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR’S LIFE.

* * * * *

Many allusions to my earlier history occurring in the following pages, it may not, perhaps, be deemed impertinent on my part, if I should attempt to give a short and hasty sketch of my life, devoted as it has been to perpetual wandering, and chequered by a thousand misfortunes.

My family is as ancient, I dare say, as that of any upon the face of the earth, although, notwithstanding the profoundest research, I have been unable to trace its descent, with genealogical accuracy and precision, to a more remote era than the period of my grandfather’s nonage; the history of all my ancestors previous to him, being either mixed with fable, or involved in doubt and uncertainty. If the ancient saying of the people of Cornwall, that,

“By Tre, Pol, Lan, and Pen,

You may know most Cornishmen,”

be entitled to credit, then undoubtedly my family is of pure Cornish extraction; and I would respectfully suggest that it has a double claim, in the present generation, to the enviable distinction of antiquity, my mother’s maiden name being Pen-rose, and my father’s name Lan-der. Thus much for my pedigree; and I have the solitary satisfaction of boasting of at least one celebrated character in its humble records, my grandfather, by my mother’s side, who was a noted wrestler in his day, and lived some fifty years since near the Land’s End.

I am the fourth of six children, and was born at Truro, in Cornwall, in 1804, on the very day on which Colonel Lemon was elected Member of Parliament for the Borough. Owing to this striking coincidence, singular as it may seem, my father, who was fond of sounding appellations, at the simple suggestion of the doctor who attended the family, added Lemon to my baptismal name of Richard: an example of the trivial means by which people are oftentimes accommodated with an extra name. As nothing remarkable occurred for the first five or six years after I came into the world, I shall pass them over in silence, simply observing, that when yet in infancy, whilst I was in the act of gazing one morning at something attached to the ceiling of my father’s stable, a piece of iron, having a sharpened edge, fell and entered my forehead; which accident was of so serious a nature that I was ill for several weeks, and narrowly escaped with life.

My rambling inclinations began to display themselves in early youth. I was never easy a great while together in one place, and used to be delighted to play truant and stroll from town to town, and from village to village, whenever I could steal an opportunity as well; as to mix in the society of boys possessing restless habits and inclinations similar to my own. I used also to listen with unmixed attention to old women’s tales about the manners and ceremonies of the natives of distant regions of the earth, and never felt greater pleasure than when, dangling me on their knees, or stroking down my face with their aged hands, they used to say, “you will be sure to see two kingdoms, Richard, for you have two crowns upon your head!” Their marvellous descriptions of monsters existing, they affirmed, in remote lands, likewise conspired to raise in me a longing to be a traveller; for the venerable matrons of my native county, moving in the humbler walks of life, like those of most other counties and nations, are fond of the wonderful, and endeavour to stamp a love of it in the tender mind of youth with all the solemnity and earnestness of age and belief. These tales, how incredible soever they might have been, made a deep and permanent impression on my thoughts; and though so very young, I formed a resolution, or rather felt a strong and violent inclination to become a wanderer, in order that the story of my adventures might one day rival in interest those to which I had listened with so devout an attention; perhaps also a childish feeling of pride entered my bosom as I used to say to myself: “And when I shall have returned from such and such a place, and seen all the strange sights in them, my former companions will look upon me with a mixture of wonder and admiration, and I shall excite the envy of the other boys.”