Жюль Верн
Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 3. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century
At Boolibaba, a village inhabited by Foulah shepherds, the travellers were enabled to recruit, and to fill their leathern bottles for a journey across a second desert.
Avoiding Fouta Toro, whose inhabitants are fanatics and thieves, Partarieu entered Bondou. He would gladly have evaded visiting Boulibané, the capital and residence of the almamy, but was compelled to do so, owing to the refusal of the people to supply grain or water to the caravan, and also in obedience to the strict orders of Major Gray, who thought the almamy would let the travellers pass after paying tribute.
The terrible almamy began by extorting a great number of presents, and then refused to allow the English to visit Bakel on the Senegal. They might, he said, go through his states, those of Kaarta, to Clego, or they might take the Fouta Toro route. Both these alternatives were equally impossible, as in either case the caravan would have to travel among fanatic tribes. The explorers believed the almamy's object was to have them robbed and murdered, without incurring the personal responsibility.
They resolved to force their way. Preparations were scarcely begun for a start, when the caravan was surrounded by a multitude of soldiers, who, taking possession of the wells, rendered it impossible for the travellers to carry out their intentions. At the same time the war-drum was beaten on every side. To fight was impossible; a palaver had to be held. In a word, the English had to own their powerlessness. The almamy dictated the conditions of peace, mulcted the whites of a few more presents, and ordered them to withdraw by way of Fouta Toro.
Yet more – and this was a flagrant insult to British pride – the English found themselves escorted by a guard, which prevented their taking any other route. When night fell they revenged themselves by setting fire to all their merchandise in the very sight of the Foulahs, who had intended to get possession of them. The crossing of Fouta Toro among hostile natives was terribly arduous. The slightest pretext was seized for a dispute, and again and again violence seemed inevitable. Food and water were only to be obtained at exorbitant prices.
At last, one night, Partarieu, to disarm the suspicion of the natives, gave out that he could not carry all his baggage at once, and having first filled his coffers and bags with stones, he decamped with all his followers for the Senegal, leaving his tents pitched and his fires alight. His path was strewn with bales, arms, and animals. Thanks to this subterfuge, and the rapidity of their march, the English reached Bakel in safety, where the French welcomed the remnant of the expedition with enthusiasm.
Caillié, attacked by a fever which nearly proved fatal, returned to St. Louis; but not recovering his health there, he was obliged to go back to France. Not until 1824 was he able to return to Senegal, which was then governed by Baron Roger, a friend to progress, who was anxious pari passu, to extend our geographical knowledge with our commercial relations. Roger supplied Caillié with means to go and live amongst the Bracknas, there to study Arabic and the Mussulman religion.
Life amongst the suspicious and fanatic Moorish shepherds was by no means easy. The traveller, who had great difficulty in keeping his daily journal, was obliged to resort to all manner of subterfuges to obtain permission to explore the neighbourhood of his house. He gives us some curious details of the life of the Bracknas – of their diet, which consists almost entirely of milk; of their habitations, which are nothing more than tents unfitted for the vicissitudes of the climate; of their "guéhués" or itinerant minstrels; their mode of producing the excessive embonpoint which they consider the height of female beauty; the aspect of the country; the fertility and productions of the soil, &c.
The most remarkable of all the facts collected by Caillié are those relating to the five distinct classes into which the Moorish Bracknas are divided. These are the Hassanes, or warriors, whose idleness, slovenliness, and pride exceed belief; the Marabouts, or priests; the Zénagues, tributary to the Hassanes; the Laratines; and the slaves.
The Zénagues are a miserable class, despised by all the others, but especially by the Hassanes, to whom they pay a tribute, which is of variable amount, and is never considered enough. They do all the work, both industrial and agricultural, and rear all the cattle.
"In spite of my efforts," says Caillié, "I could find out nothing about the origin of this people, or ascertain how they came to be reduced to pay tribute to other Moors. When I asked them any questions about this, they said it was God's will. Can they be a remnant of a conquered tribe? and if so, how is it that no tradition on the subject is retained amongst them. I do not think they can be, for the Moors, proud as they are of their origin, never forget the names of those who have brought credit to their families; and were such the case, the Zénagues, who form the majority of the population, and are skilful warriors, would rise under the leadership of one of their chiefs, and fling off the yoke of servitude."
Laratine is the name given to the offspring of a Moor and a negro slave. Although they are slaves, the Laratines are never sold, but while living in separate camps, are treated very much like the Zénagues. Those who are the sons of Hassanes are warriors, whilst the children of Marabouts are brought up to the profession of their father.
The actual slaves are all negroes. Ill-treated, badly fed, and flogged on the slightest pretext, there is no suffering which they are not called upon to endure.
In May, 1825, Caillié returned to St. Louis. Baron Roger was absent, and his representative was by no means friendly. The explorer had to content himself with the pay of a common soldier until the return of his protector, to whom he sent the notes he had made when amongst the Bracknas, but all his offers of service were rejected. He was promised a certain sum on his return from Timbuctoo; but how was he even to start without private resources?
The intrepid Caillié was not, however, to be discouraged. As he obtained neither encouragement nor help from the colonial government, he went to Sierra Leone, where the governor, who did not wish to deprive Major Laing of the credit of being the first to arrive at Timbuctoo, rejected his proposals.
In the management of an indigo factory, Caillié soon saved money to the extent of two thousand francs, a sum which appeared to him sufficient to carry him to the end of the world. He lost no time in purchasing the necessary merchandise, and joined some Mandingoes and "seracolets," or wandering African merchants. He told them, under the seal of secrecy, that he had been born in Egypt of Arab parents, taken to France at an early age, and sent to Senegal to look after the business of his master, who, satisfied with his services, had given him his freedom. He added, that his chief desire was to get back to Egypt, and resume the Mohammedan religion.
On the 22nd March, 1827, Caillié left Freetown for Kakondy, a village on the Rio Nuñez, where he employed his leisure in collecting information respecting the Landamas and the Nalous, both subject to the Foulahs of Fouta Djallon, but not Mohammedans, and, as a necessary result, both much given to spirituous liquors. They dwell in the districts watered by the Rio Nuñez, side by side with the Bagos, an idolatrous race who dwell at its mouth. The Bagos are light-hearted, industrious, and skilful tillers of the soil; they make large profits out of the sale of their rice and salt. They have no king, no religion but a barbarous idolatry, and are governed by the oldest man in their village, an arrangement which answers very well.
On the 19th April, 1827, Caillié with but one bearer and a guide, at last started for Timbuctoo. He speaks favourably of the Foulahs and the people of Fouta Djallon, whose rich and fertile country he crossed. The Ba-Fing, the chief affluent of the Senegal, was not more than a hundred paces across, and a foot and a half deep where he passed it; but the force of the current, and the huge granite rocks encumbering its bed, render it very difficult and dangerous to cross the river. After a halt of nineteen days in the village of Cambaya, the home of the guide who had accompanied him thus far, Caillié entered Kankan, crossing a district intersected by rivers and large streams, which were then beginning to inundate the whole land.
On the 30th May the explorer crossed the Tankisso, a large river with a rocky bed belonging to the system of the Niger, and reached the latter on the 11th June, at Couronassa.
"Even here," says Caillié, "so near to its source, the Niger is 900 feet wide, with a current of two miles and a half."
Before we enter Kankan with the French explorer, it will be well to sum up what he says of the Foulahs of Fouta. They are mostly tall, well-made men, with chestnut-brown complexions, curly hair, lofty foreheads, aquiline noses, features in fact very like those of Europeans. They are bigoted Mohammedans, and hate Christians. Unlike the Mandingoes, they do not travel, but love their home; they are good agriculturists and clever traders, warlike and patriotic, and they leave none but their old men and women in their villages when they go to war.
The town of Kankan stands in a plain surrounded by lofty mountains. The bombax, baobab, and butter-tree, also called "cé" the "shea" of Mungo Park, are plentiful. Caillié was delayed in Kankan for twenty-eight days before he could get on to Sambatikala; and during that time he was shamefully robbed by his host, and could not obtain from the chief of the village restitution of the goods which had been stolen.
"Kankan," says the traveller, "is a small town near the left bank of the Milo, a pretty river, which comes from the south, and waters the Kissi district, where it takes its rise, flowing thence in a north-westerly direction to empty itself into the Niger, two or three days' journey from Kankan. Surrounded by a thick quick-set hedge, this town, which does not contain more than 6000 inhabitants, is situated in an extensive and very fertile plain of grey sand. On every side are pretty little villages, called Worondes, where the slaves live. These habitations give interest to the scene, and are surrounded by very fine plantations; yams, rice, onions, pistachio nuts, &c., are exported in large quantities."
Between Kankan and Wassolo the road led through well cultivated, and, at this time of year, nearly submerged districts. The inhabitants struck Caillié as being of a mild, cheerful, and inquiring disposition. They gave him a cordial welcome.
Several tributaries of the Niger, including the Sarano, were passed before a halt was made at Sigala, the residence of Baranusa, the chief of Wassolo. He was of slovenly habits, like his subjects, and used tobacco both as snuff and for smoking. He was said to be very rich in gold and slaves. His subjects paid him a tribute in cattle; he had a great many wives, each of whom owned a hut of her own, their houses forming a little village, with well cultivated environs. Here Caillié for the first time saw the Rhamnus Lotus mentioned by Park.
On leaving Wossolo, Caillié entered Foulou, whose inhabitants, like those of the former district, are idolaters, of slovenly habits. They speak the Mandingo tongue. At Sambatikala the traveller paid a visit to the almamy.
"We entered," he says, "a place which served him as a bedroom for himself and a stable for his horse. The prince's bed was at the further end. It consisted of a little platform raised six inches from the ground, on which was stretched an ox hide, with a dirty mosquito curtain, to keep off the insects. There was no other furniture in this royal abode. Two saddles hung from stakes driven into the wall; a large straw hat, a drum only used in war-time, a few lances, a bow, a quiver, and some arrows, were the only ornaments. A lamp made of a piece of flat iron set on a stand of the same metal, stood on the ground. This lamp was fed by a kind of vegetable matter, not thick enough to be made into candles."
The almamy soon informed Caillié of an opportunity for him to go to Timeh, whence a caravan was about to start for Jenneh. The traveller then entered the province of Bambarra, and quickly arrived at the pretty little village of Timeh, inhabited by Mohammedan Mandingoes, and bounded on the east by a chain of mountains about 350 fathoms high.
When he entered this village, at the end of July, Caillié little dreamt of the long stay he would be compelled to make in it. He had hurt his foot, and the wound became very much inflamed by walking in wet grass. He therefore decided to let the caravan for Jenneh go on without him, and remain at Timeh until his foot should be completely healed. It would have been too great a risk for him in his state to travel through Bambarra, where the idolatrous inhabitants of the country would be pretty sure to rob him.
"The Bambarras," he says, "have few slaves, go almost naked, and are always armed with bows and arrows. They are governed by a number of petty independent chiefs, who are often at war with one another. They are in fact rude and wild creatures as compared with the tribes who have embraced Mohammedanism."
Caillié was detained at Timeh by the still unhealed wound in his foot, until the 10th November. At that date he proposed starting for Jenneh, but, to quote his own words, "I was now seized with violent pains in the jaws, warning me that I was attacked with scurvy, a terrible malady, all the horrors of which I was to realize. My palate was completely skinned, part of the bone came away, my teeth seemed ready to fall out of the gums, my sufferings were terrible. I feared that my brain might be affected by the agony of pain in my head. I was more than a fortnight without an instant's sleep."
To make matters worse, the wound broke out afresh; and he would have been cured neither of it nor of the scurvy had it not been for the energetic treatment of an old negress, who was accustomed to doctor the scorbutic affections, so common in that country.
On the 9th January, 1828, Caillié left Timeh, and reached Kimba, a little village where the caravan for Jenneh was assembled. Near to this village rises the chain erroneously called Kong, which is the general name for mountain amongst the Mandingoes.
The names of the villages entered by the travellers, and the incidents of the journey through Bambarra, are of no special interest. The inhabitants are accounted great thieves by the Mandingoes, but are probably not more dishonest than their critics.
The Bambarra women all wear a thin slip of wood imbedded in the lower lip, a strange fashion exactly similar to that noticed by Cook amongst the natives of the north-western coast of America. The Bambarras speak Mandingo, though they have a dialect of their own called Kissour, about which the traveller could obtain no trustworthy written information.
Jenneh was formerly called "the golden land." The precious metal is not, however, found there, but a good deal is imported by the Boureh merchants and the Mandingoes of Kong.
Jenneh, two miles and a half in circumference, is surrounded by a mud wall ten feet high. The houses, built of bricks baked in the sun, are as large as those of European peasants. They have all terraces, but no outer windows. Numbers of foreigners frequent Jenneh. The inhabitants, as many as eight or ten thousand, are very industrious and intelligent. They hire out their slaves, and also employ them in various handicrafts.
The Moors, however, monopolize the more important commerce. Not a day passes that they do not despatch huge boats laden with rice, millet, cotton, honey, vegetable butter, and other native products.
In spite of this great commercial movement, the prosperity of Jenneh was threatened. Sego Ahmadou, chief of the country, impelled by bigoted zeal, made fierce war upon the Bambarras of Sego, whom he wished to rally round the standard of the Prophet. This struggle did a great deal of harm to the trade of Jenneh, for it interrupted intercourse with Yamina, Sansanding, Bamakou, and Boureh, which were the chief marts for its produce.
The women of Jenneh would not be true to their sex if they did not show some marks of coquetry. Those who aim at fashion pass a ring or a glass ornament through the nostrils, whilst their poorer sisters content themselves with a bit of pink silk.
During Caillié's long stay at Jenneh, he was loaded with kindness and attentions by the Moors, to whom he had told the fabulous tale about his birth in Egypt, and abduction by the army of occupation.
On the 23rd March, the traveller embarked on the Niger for Timbuctoo, on which the sheriff, won over by the gift of an umbrella, had obtained a passage for him. He carried with him letters of introduction to the chief persons in Timbuctoo.
Caillié now passed in succession the pretty villages of Kera, Taguetia, Sankha-Guibila, Diebeh, and Isaca, near to which the river is joined by an important branch, which makes a great bend beyond Sego, catching sight also of Wandacora, Wanga, Corocoïla, and Cona, finally reaching, on the 2nd of April, the mouth of the important Lake Debo.
"Land," says Caillié, "is visible on every side of this lake except on the west, where it widens out like a vast inland sea. Following its northern coast in a west-north-west direction for a distance of fifteen miles, you leave on the left a tongue of level ground, which runs several miles to the south, seeming to bar the passage of the lake, and form a kind of strait. Beyond this barrier the lake stretches away out of sight in the west. The barrier I have just described cuts Lake Debo into two parts, the upper and lower. That navigable to boats contains three islands, and is very wide; it stretches away a short distance on the east, and is supplemented by an immense number of huge marshes."
One after the other, Caillié now passed the fishing village of Gabibi; Tongoon in the Diriman country, a district stretching far away on the east; Codosa, an important commercial town; Barconga, Leleb, Garfolo, Baracondieh, Tircy, Talbocoïla, Salacoïla, Cora, Coratou, where the Tuaricks exact a toll from passing boats, and finally reached Cabra, built on a height out of reach of the overflowing of the Niger, and serving as the port of Timbuctoo.
On the 20th, Caillié disembarked, and started for that city, which he entered at sundown.
"I, at last," cries our hero, "saw the capital of the Soudan, which had so long been the goal of my desires. As I entered that mysterious town, an object of curiosity to the civilized nations of Europe, I was filled with indescribable exultation. I never experienced anything like it, and my delight knew no bounds. But I had to moderate my transports, and it was to God alone I confided them. With what earnestness I thanked Him for the success which had crowned my enterprise and the signal protection He had accorded me in so many apparently insurmountable difficulties and perils. My first emotions having subsided, I found that the scene before me by no means came up to my expectations. I had conceived a very different idea of the grandeur and wealth of this town. At first sight it appeared nothing more than a mass of badly-built houses, whilst on every side stretched vast plains of arid, yellowish, shifting sands. The sky was of a dull red colour on the horizon; all nature seemed melancholy; profound silence prevailed, not so much as the song of a bird was heard. And yet there was something indescribably imposing in the sight of a large town rising up in the midst of the sandy desert, and the beholder cannot but admire the indomitable energy of its founders. I fancy the river formerly passed nearer the town of Timbuctoo; it is now eight miles north of it and five of Cabra."
Timbuctoo, which is neither so large nor so well populated as Caillié expected, is altogether wanting in animation. There are no large caravans constantly arriving in it, as at Jenneh; nor are there so many strangers there as in the latter town; whilst the market, held at three o'clock in the morning on account of the heat, appears deserted.
Timbuctoo is inhabited by Kissour negroes, who seem of mild dispositions, and are employed in trade. There is no government, and strictly speaking no central authority; each town and village has its own chief. The mode of life is patriarchal. A great many Moorish merchants are settled in the town, and rapidly make fortunes there. They receive consignments of merchandise from Adrar, Tafilet, Ghât, Ghâdames, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli.
To Timbuctoo is brought all the salt of the mines of Toudeyni, packed on camels. It is imported in slabs, bound together by ropes, made from grass in the neighbourhood of Tandayeh.
Timbuctoo is built in the form of a triangle, and measures about three miles in circumference. The houses are large but not lofty, and are built of round bricks. The streets are wide and clean. There are seven mosques, each surmounted by a square tower, from which the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer. Counting the floating population, the capital of the Soudan does not contain more than from ten to twelve thousand inhabitants.
Timbuctoo, situated in the midst of a vast plain of shifting white sand, trades in salt only, the soil being quite unsuitable to any sort of cultivation. The town is always full of people, who come to exact what they call presents, but what might with more justice be styled forced contributions. It is a public calamity when a Tuarick chief arrives. He remains in the town a couple of months, living with his numerous followers at the expense of the inhabitants, until he has wrung costly presents from them. Terror has extended the domination of these wandering tribes over all the neighbouring peoples, whom they rob and pillage without mercy.
The Tuarick costume is the same as that of the Arabs, with the exception of the head-dress. Day and night they wear a cotton band which covers the eyes and comes down over the nose, so that they are obliged to raise the head in order to see. The same band goes once or twice round the head and hides the mouth, coming down below the chin, so that the tip of the nose is all that is visible.
The Tuaricks are perfect riders, and mounted on first-rate horses or on fleet camels; each man is armed with a spear, a shield, and a dagger. They are the pirates of the desert, and innumerable are the caravans they have robbed, or blackmailed.
Four days after Caillié's arrival at Timbuctoo, he heard that a caravan was about to start for Talifet; and as he knew that another would not go for three months, fearing detection, he resolved to join this one. It consisted of a large number of merchants, and 600 camels. Starting on the 4th of May, 1828, he arrived, after terrible sufferings from the heat, and a sand-storm in which he was caught, at El Arawan, a town of no private resources, but important as the emporium for the Toudeyni salt, exported at Sansanding, on the banks of the Niger, and also as the halting-place of caravans from Tafilet, Mogadore, Ghât, Drat, and Tripoli, the merchants here exchanging European wares for ivory, gold, slaves, wax, honey, and Soudan stuffs. On the 19th May, the caravan left El Arawan for Morocco, by way of the Sahara. To the traveller's usual sufferings from heat, thirst, and privations of all kinds, was now added the pain of a wound incurred in a fall from his camel. He was also taunted by the Moors, and even by their slaves, who ridiculed his habits and his awkwardness, and even sometimes threw stones at him when his back was turned towards them.
"Often," says Caillié, "one of the Moors would say to me in a contemptuous tone: 'You see that slave? Well I prefer him to you, so you may guess in what esteem I hold you.' This insult would be accompanied with roars of laughter."
Under these miserable circumstances Caillié passed the wells of Trarzas, in whose vicinity salt is found, also those of Amul Gamil, Amul Taf, El Ekreif, surrounded by date-trees, wood, willows, and rushes, and reached Marabouty and El Harib, districts whose inhabitants are disgustingly dirty in their habits.
El Harib lies between two chains of low hills, dividing it from Morocco, to which it is tributary. Its inhabitants, divided into several nomad tribes, employ themselves chiefly in the breeding of camels. They would be rich and contented, but for the ceaseless exactions of the Berber Arabs.
On the 12th July the caravan left El Harib, and eleven days later entered the province of Talifet, famous for its majestic date-trees. At Ghourland, Caillié was welcomed with some kindness by the Moors, though he was not admitted to their houses, lest the women, who are visible only to the men of their own families, should be seen by the irreverent eyes of a stranger.
Caillié visited the market, which is held three times a week near a little village called Boheim, three miles from Ghourland, and was surprised at the variety of articles exposed for sale in it: vegetables, native fruits, fodder for cattle, poultry, sheep, &c. &c., all in large quantities. Water in leather bottles was carried about for sale to all who cared to drink in the exhausting heat, by men who announced their approach by ringing a small hand-bell. Moorish and Spanish coins alone passed current. The province of Tafilet contains several large villages and small towns. Ghourland, El Ekseba, Sosso, Boheim, and Ressant, which our traveller visited, contained some twelve hundred inhabitants each, all merchants and owners of property.
The soil is very productive: corn, vegetables, dates, European fruits, and tobacco, are cultivated in large quantities. Among the sources of wealth in Tafilet we may name very fine sheep, whose beautifully white wool makes very pretty coverlets, oxen, first-rate horses, donkeys, and mules.
As at El-Drah, a good many Jews live in the villages together with Mohammedans. They lead a miserable life, go about half naked, and are constantly struck and insulted. Whether brokers, shoemakers, blacksmiths, porters, or whatever their ostensible occupation, they all lend money to the Moors.
On the 2nd August the caravan resumed its march, and after passing A-Fileh, Tanneyara, Marca, Dayara, Rahaba, El Eyarac, Tamaroc, Ain-Zeland, El Guim, Guigo, and Soporo, Caillié arrived at Fez, where he made a short stay, and then pressed on to Rabat, the ancient Saléh. Exhausted by his long march, with nothing to eat but a few dates, obliged to depend on the charity of the Mussulmans, who as often as not declined to give him anything, and finding at Fez no representative of France but an old Jew named Ismail, who acted as Consular Agent, and who, being afraid of compromising himself, would not let Caillié embark on a Portuguese brig bound for Gibraltar, – the traveller eagerly availed himself of a fortunate chance for going to Tangiers. There he was kindly received by the Vice-Consul, M. Delaporte, who wrote at once to the commandant of the French station at Cadiz, and sent him off bound for that port, disguised as a sailor, in a corvette.
The landing at Toulon of the young Frenchman fresh from Timbuctoo, was a very unexpected event in the scientific world. With nothing to aid him but his own invincible courage and patience, he had brought to a satisfactory conclusion an exploit for which the French and English Geographical Societies had offered large rewards. Alone, without any resources to speak of, without the aid of government or of any scientific society, by sheer force of will, he had succeeded in throwing a flood of new light on an immense tract of Africa.
Caillié was not indeed the first European who had visited Timbuctoo. In the preceding year, Major Laing had penetrated into that mysterious city, but he had paid for his expedition with his life, and we shall presently relate the touching details of his fatal trip.
Caillié had returned to Europe, and brought back with him the curious journal from which our narrative is taken. It is true his profession of the Mohammedan faith had prevented him from taking astronomical observations, and from making sketches and notes freely, but only at the price of his seeming apostasy could he have passed through the region where the very name of a Christian is held in abhorrence.
How many strange observations, how many fresh and exact details, did Caillié add to our knowledge of North-West Africa! It had cost Clapperton two journeys to traverse Africa from Tripoli to Benin; Caillié had crossed from Senegal to Morocco in one – but at what a price! How much fatigue, how much suffering, how many privations, had the Frenchman endured! Timbuctoo was known at last, as well as the new caravan route across the Sahara by way of the oases of Tafilet and El Harib.
Was Caillié compensated for his physical and mental sufferings by the aid which the Geographical Society sent to him at once, by the prize of 10,000 francs adjudged to him, by the Cross of the Legion of Honour and the fame and glory attached to his name? We suppose he was. He says more than once in his narrative that nothing but his wish to add by his discoveries to the glory of France, his native country, could have sustained him under the trying circumstances and insults to which he was constantly subjected. All honour then to the patient traveller, the sincere patriot, the great discoverer.
We have still to speak of the expedition which cost Alexander Gordon Laing his life; but before giving our necessarily brief account, for his journals were all lost, we must say a few words about his early life and an interesting excursion made by him to Timmannee, Kouran and Soolimana, when he discovered the sources of the Niger.
Laing was born in Edinburgh in 1794, entered the English army at the age of sixteen, and soon distinguished himself. In 1820 he had gained the rank of Lieutenant, and was serving as aide-de-camp to Sir Charles Maccarthy, then Governor General of Western Africa. At this time war was raging between Amara, the Mandingo almamy, and Sannassi, one of his principal chiefs. Trade had never been very flourishing in Sierra Leone, and this state of things dealt it its death-blow. Maccarthy, anxious to put matters on a better footing, determined to interfere and bring about a reconciliation between the rival chiefs. He decided on sending an embassy to Kambia, on the borders of the Scarcies, and from thence to Malacoury and the Mandingo camp. The enterprising character, intelligence, and courage of Laing led to his being chosen by the governor as his envoy, and on the 7th January, 1822, he received instructions to report on the manufactures and topography of the provinces mentioned, and to ascertain the feeling of the inhabitants on the abolition of slavery.
