A Book of Discovery Part 29

"For the first two minutes," he says, "I do not know whether I was most in the earth or in the air; he kicked behind, reared before, leaped like a deer all four legs off the ground--he then attempted to gallop, taking the bridle in his teeth; he continued to gallop and ran away as hard as he could, flinging out behind every ten yards, till he had no longer breath or strength and I began to think he would scarce carry me to the camp."

On his return Bruce mounted his own horse, and, taking his double-barrelled gun, he rode about, twisting and turning his horse in every direction, to the admiration of these wild Abyssinian folk.

Not only did Fasil now let him go, but he dressed him in a fine, loose muslin garment which reached to his feet, gave him guides and a handsome grey horse.

"Take this horse," he said, "as a present from me. Do not mount it yourself; drive it before you, saddled and bridled as it is; no man will touch you when he sees that horse." Bruce obeyed his orders, and the horse was driven in front of him. The horse was magic; the people gave it handfuls of barley and paid more respect to it than to Bruce himself, though in many cases the people seemed scared by the appearance of the horse and fled away.

On 2nd November the Nile came into sight. It was only two hundred and sixty feet broad; but it was deeply revered by the people who lived on its banks. They refused to allow Bruce to ride across, but insisted on his taking off his shoes and walking through the shallow stream.

It now became difficult to get food as they crossed the scorching hot plains. But Bruce was nearing his goal, and at last he stood at the top of the great Abyssinian tableland. "Immediately below us appeared the Nile itself, strangely diminished in size, now only a brook that had scarcely water to turn a mill." Throwing off his shoes, trampling down the flowers that grew on the mountain-side, falling twice in his excitement, Bruce ran down in breathless haste till he reached the "hillock of green sod" which has made his name so famous.

"It is easier to guess than to describe the situation of my mind at that moment, standing in that spot which had baffled the genius, industry, and inquiry of both ancients and moderns for the course of near three thousand years. Kings had attempted this discovery at the heads of their armies--fame, riches, and honour had been held out for a series of ages without having produced one man capable of wiping off this stain upon the enterprise and abilities of mankind or adding this desideratum for the encouragement of geography. Though a mere private Briton, I triumphed here over kings and their armies. I was but a few minutes arrived at the source of the Nile, through numberless dangers and sufferings, the least of which would have overwhelmed me but for the continual goodness and protection of Providence. I was, however, but then half through my journey, and all those dangers which I had already pa.s.sed awaited me again on my return. I found a despondency gaining ground fast upon me and blasting the crown of laurels I had too rashly woven for myself."

Bruce then filled a large cocoa-nut sh.e.l.l, which he had brought from Arabia, full of the Nile water, and drank to the health of His Majesty King George III.

CHAPTER XLVIII

MUNGO PARK AND THE NIGER

Bruce died in the spring of 1794. Just a year later another Scotsman, Mungo Park, from Selkirk, started off to explore the great river Niger--whose course was as mysterious as that of the Nile. Most of the early geographers knew something of a great river running through Negroland. Indeed, Herodotus tells of five young men, the Nasamones, who set out to explore the very heart of Africa. Arrived at the edge of the great sandy desert, they collected provisions and supplied themselves with water and plunged courageously into the unknown. For weary days they made their way across to the south, till they were rewarded by finding themselves in a fertile land well watered by lakes and marshes, with fruit trees and a little race of men and women whom they called pigmies.

And a large river was flowing from west to east--probably the Niger.

But the days of Herodotus are long since past. It was centuries later when the Arabs, fiery with the faith of Mohammed, swept over the unexplored lands. "With a fiery enthusiasm that nothing could withstand, and inspired by a hope of heaven which nothing could shake, they swept from district to district, from tribe to tribe," everywhere proclaiming to roving mult.i.tudes the faith of their master. In this spirit they had faced the terrors of the Sahara Desert, and in the tenth century reached the land of the negroes, found the Niger, and established schools and mosques westward of Timbuktu.

Portugal had then begun to play her part, and the fifteenth century is full of the wonderful voyages inspired by Prince Henry of Portugal, which culminated in the triumph of Vasco da Gama's great voyage to India by the Cape of Good Hope.

Then the slave trade drew the Elizabethan Englishmen to the sh.o.r.es of West Africa, and the coast was studded with forts and stations in connection with it. Yet in the eighteenth century the Niger and Timbuktu were still a mystery.

In 1778 the African a.s.sociation was founded, with our old friend Sir Joseph Banks as an active member inquiring for a suitable man to follow up the work of the explorer Houghton, who had just perished in the desert on his way to Timbuktu.

The opportunity produced the man. Mungo Park, a young Scotsman, bitten with the fever of unrest, had just returned from a voyage to the East on board an East India Company's ship. He heard of this new venture, and applied for it. The African a.s.sociation instantly accepted his services, and on 22nd May 1795, Mungo Park left England on board the _Endeavour_, and after a pleasant voyage of thirty days landed at the mouth of the river Gambia. The river is navigable for four hundred miles from its mouth, and Park sailed up to a native town, where the _Endeavour_ was anch.o.r.ed, while he set out on horseback for a little village, Pisania, where a few British subjects traded in slaves, ivory, and gold. Here he stayed a while, to learn the language of the country.

Fever delayed him till the end of November, when the rains were over, the native crops had been reaped, and food was cheap and plentiful.

On 3rd December he made a start, his sole attendants being a negro servant, Johnson, and a slave boy. Mungo Park was mounted on a strong, spirited little horse, his attendants on donkeys. He had provisions for two days, beads, amber, and tobacco for buying fresh food, an umbrella, a compa.s.s, a thermometer and pocket s.e.xtant, some pistols and firearms, and "thus attended, thus provided, thus armed, Mungo Park started for the heart of Africa."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MUNGO PARK. From the engraving in Park's _Travels into the Interior of Africa_, 1799.]

Three days' travelling brought him to Medina, where he found the old king sitting on a bullock's hide, warming himself before a large fire.

He begged the English explorer to turn back and not to travel into the interior, for the people there had never seen a white man and would most certainly destroy him. Mungo Park was not so easily deterred, and taking farewell of the good old king, he took a guide and proceeded on his way.

A day's journey brought him to a village where a curious custom prevailed. Hanging on a tree, he found a sort of masquerading dress made out of bark. He discovered that it belonged to a strange bugbear known to all the natives of the neighbourhood as Mumbo Jumbo. The natives or Kafirs of this part had many wives, with the result that family quarrels often took place. If a husband was offended by his wife he disappeared into the woods, disguised himself in the dress of Mumbo Jumbo, and, armed with the rod of authority, announced his advent by loud and dismal screams near the town. All hurried to the accepted meeting-place, for none dare disobey. The meeting opened with song and dance till midnight, when Mumbo Jumbo announced the offending wife. The unlucky victim was then seized, stripped, tied to a post, and beaten with Mumbo's rod amid the shouts of the a.s.sembled company.

A few days before Christmas, Park entered Fatticonda--the place where Major Houghton had been robbed and badly used. He therefore took some amber, tobacco, and an umbrella as gifts to the king, taking care to put on his best blue coat, lest it should be stolen. The king was delighted with his gifts; he furled and unfurled his umbrella to the great admiration of his attendants. "The king then praised my blue coat," says Park, "of which the yellow b.u.t.tons seemed particularly to catch his fancy, and entreated me to give it to him, a.s.suring me that he would wear it on all public occasions. As it was against my interests to offend him by a refusal, I very quietly took off my coat--the only good one in my possession--and laid it at his feet."

Then without his coat and umbrella, but in peace, Park travelled onward to the dangerous district which was so invested with robbers that the little party had to travel by night. The howling of wild beasts alone broke the awful silence as they crept forth by moonlight on their way.

But the news that a white man was travelling through their land spread, and he was surrounded by a party of hors.e.m.e.n, who robbed him of nearly all his possessions. His attendant Johnson urged him to return, for certain death awaited him. But Park was not the man to turn back, and he was soon rewarded by finding the king's nephew, who conducted him in safety to the banks of the Senegal River.

Then he travelled on to the next king, who rejoiced in the name of Daisy Korrabarri. Here Mungo learnt to his dismay that war was going on in the province that lay between him and the Niger, and the king could offer no protection. Still nothing deterred the resolute explorer, who took another route and continued his journey. Again he had to travel by night, for robbers haunted his path, which now lay among Mohammedans. He pa.s.sed the very spot where Houghton had been left to die of starvation in the desert. As he advanced through these inhospitable regions, new difficulties met him. His attendants firmly refused to move farther. Mungo Park was now alone in the great desert Negroland, between the Senegal and the Niger, as with magnificent resolution he continued his way. Suddenly a clear halloo rang out on the night air. It was his black boy, who had followed him to share his fate. Onward they went together, hoping to get safely through the land where Mohammedans ruled over low-caste negroes. Suddenly a party of Moors surrounded him, bidding him come to Ali, the chief, who wished to see a white man and a Christian. Park now found himself the centre of an admiring crowd. Men, women, and children crowded round him, pulling at his clothes and examining his waistcoat b.u.t.tons till he could hardly move. Arrived at Ali's tent, Mungo found an old man with a long white beard. "The surrounding attendants, and especially the ladies, were most inquisitive; they asked a thousand questions, inspected every part of my clothes, searched my pockets, and obliged me to unb.u.t.ton my waistcoat and display the whiteness of my skin--they even counted my toes and fingers, as if they doubted whether I was in truth a human being." He was lodged in a hut made of corn stalks, and a wild hog was tied to a stake as a suitable companion for the hated Christian. He was brutally ill-treated, closely watched, and insulted by "the rudest savages on earth." The desert winds scorched him, the sand choked him, the heavens above were like bra.s.s, the earth beneath as the floor of an oven. Fear came on him, and he dreaded death with his work yet unfinished. At last he escaped from this awful captivity amid the wilds of Africa. Early one morning at sunrise, he stepped over the sleeping negroes, seized his bundle, jumped on to his horse, and rode away as hard as he could. Looking back, he saw three Moors in hot pursuit, whooping and brandishing their double-barrelled guns. But he was beyond reach, and he breathed again.

Now starvation stared him in the face. To the pangs of hunger were added the agony of thirst. The sun beat down pitilessly, and at last Mungo fell on the sand. "Here," he thought--"here after a short but ineffectual struggle I must end all my hopes of being useful in my day and generation; here must the short span of my life come to an end."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAMP OF ALI, THE MOHAMMEDAN CHIEF, AT BENOWN. From a sketch by Mungo Park.]

But happily a great storm came and Mungo spread out his clothes to collect the drops of rain, and quenched his thirst by wringing them out and sucking them. After this refreshment he led his tired horse, directing his way by the compa.s.s, lit up at intervals by vivid flashes of lightning. It was not till the third week of his flight that his reward came. "I was told I should see the Niger early next day," he wrote on 20th July 1796. "We were riding through some marshy ground, when some one called out 'See the water!' and, looking forwards, I saw with infinite pleasure the great object of my mission--the long-sought-for majestic Niger glittering to the morning sun, as broad as the Thames at Westminster, and flowing slowly _to the eastward_.

I hastened to the brink and, having drunk of the water, lifted up my fervent thanks in prayer to the Great Ruler of all things, for having thus far crowned my endeavours with success. The circ.u.mstance of the Niger's flowing towards the east did not excite my surprise, for although I had left Europe in great hesitation on this subject, I had received from the negroes clear a.s.surances that its general course was _towards the rising sun_."

He was now near Sego--the capital of Bambarra--on the Niger, a city of some thirty thousand inhabitants. "The view of this extensive city, the numerous canoes upon the river, the crowded population, and the cultivated state of the surrounding country, formed altogether a prospect of civilisation and magnificence which I little expected to find in the bosom of Africa." The natives looked at the poor, thin, white stranger with astonishment and fear, and refused to allow him to cross the river. All day he sat without food under the shade of a tree, and was proposing to climb the tree and rest among its branches to find shelter from a coming storm, when a poor negro woman took pity on his deplorable condition. She took him to her hut, lit a lamp, spread a mat upon the floor, broiled him a fish, and allowed him to sleep.

While he rested she spun cotton with other women and sang: "The winds roared and the rains fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. He has no mother to bring him milk, no wife to grind his corn"; and all joined in the chorus: "Let us pity the white man, no mother has he."

[Ill.u.s.tration: KAMALIA, A NATIVE VILLAGE NEAR THE SOUTHERN COURSE OF THE NIGER. From a sketch by Mungo Park.]

Mungo Park left in the morning after presenting his landlady with two of his last four bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. But though he made another gallant effort to reach Timbuktu and the Niger, which, he was told, "ran to the world's end," lions and mosquitoes made life impossible. His horse was too weak to carry him any farther, and on 29th July 1796 he sadly turned back. "Worn down by sickness, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, half-naked, and without any article of value by which I might get provisions, clothes, or lodging, I felt I should sacrifice my life to no purpose, for my discoveries would perish with me." Joining a caravan of slaves, he reached the coast after some nineteen hundred miles, and after an absence of two years and nine months he found a suit of English clothes, "disrobed his chin of venerable enc.u.mbrance,"

and sailed for home. He published an account of the journey in 1799, after which he married and settled in Scotland as a doctor. But his heart was in Africa, and a few years later he started off again to reach Timbuktu. He arrived at the Gambia early in April 1805. "If all goes well," he wrote gaily, "this day six weeks I expect to drink all your healths in the water of the Niger." He started this time with forty-four Europeans, each with donkeys to carry baggage and food, but it was a deplorable little party that reached the great river on 19th August. Thirty men had died on the march, the donkeys had been stolen, the baggage lost. And the joy experienced by the explorer in reaching the waters of the Niger, "rolling its immense stream along the plain," was marred by the reduction of his little party to seven.

Leave to pa.s.s down the river to Timbuktu was obtained by the gift of two double-barrelled guns to the King, and in their old canoes patched together under the magnificent name of "His Majesty's schooner the _Joliba_" (great water), Mungo Park wrote his last letter home.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A NATIVE WOMAN WASHING GOLD IN SENEGAL. From a sketch by Mungo Park made on his last expedition.]

"I am far from desponding. I have changed a large canoe into a tolerably good schooner, on board of which I shall set sail to the east with a fixed resolution to discover the termination of the Niger or perish in the attempt; and though all the Europeans who are with me should die, and though I myself were half-dead, I would still persevere; and if I could not succeed in the object of my journey, I would at least die on the Niger."

It was in this spirit that the commander of the _Joliba_ and a crew of nine set forth to glide down a great river toward the heart of savage Africa, into the darkness of the unexplored.

The rest is silence.

CHAPTER XLIX

VANCOUVER DISCOVERS HIS ISLAND

While Mungo Park was attempting to find the course of the Niger, the English were busy opening up the great fur-trading country in North America. Although Captain Cook had taken possession of Nootka Sound, thinking it was part of the coast of New Albion, men from other nations had been there to establish with the natives a trade in furs. The Spaniards were specially vigorous in opening up communications on this bleak bit of western coast. Great Britain became alarmed, and decided to send Captain Vancouver with an English ship to enforce her rights to this valuable port.

Vancouver had already sailed with Cook on his second southern voyage; he had accompanied him on the _Discovery_ during his last voyage. He therefore knew something of the coast of North-West America. "On the 15th of December 1790, I had the honour of receiving my commission as commander of His Majesty's sloop the _Discovery_, then lying at Deptford, where I joined her," says Vancouver. "Lieutenant Broughton having been selected as a proper officer to command the _Chatham_, he was accordingly appointed. At day dawn on Friday the 1st of April we took a long farewell of our native sh.o.r.es. Having no particular route to the Pacific Ocean pointed out in my instructions, I did not hesitate to prefer the pa.s.sage by way of the Cape of Good Hope."

In boisterous weather Vancouver rounded the Cape, made some discoveries on the southern coast of New Holland, surveyed part of the New Zealand coast, discovered Chatham Island, and on 17th April 1792 he fell in with the coast of New Albion. It was blowing and raining hard when the coast, soon after to be part of the United States of America, was sighted by the captains and crews of the _Discovery_ and _Chatham_. Amid gales of wind and torrents of rain they coasted along the rocky and precipitous sh.o.r.es on which the surf broke with a dull roar. It was dangerous enough work coasting along this unsurveyed coast, full of sunken rocks on which the sea broke with great violence.

Soon they were at Cape Blanco (discovered by Martin D'Aguilar), and a few days later at Cape Foulweather of Cook fame, close to the so-called straits discovered by the Greek pilot John da Fuca in 1592.

Suddenly, relates Vancouver, "a sail was discovered to the westward.

This was a very great novelty, not having seen any vessel during the last eight months. She soon hoisted American colours, and proved to be the ship _Columbia_, commanded by Captain Grey, belonging to Boston.

He had penetrated about fifty miles into the disputed strait. He spoke of the mouth of a river that was inaccessible owing to breakers." (This was afterwards explored by Vancouver and named the Columbia River on which Washington now stands.)

Having examined two hundred and fifteen miles of coast, Vancouver and his two ships now entered the inlet--Da Fuca Straits--now the boundary between the United States and British Columbia. All day they made their way up the strait, till night came, and Vancouver relates with pride that "we had now advanced farther up this inlet than Mr. Grey or any other person from the civilised world."

"We are on the point of examining an entirely new region," he adds, "and in the most delightfully pleasant weather." Snowy ranges of hills, stately forest trees, vast s.p.a.ces, and the tracks of deer reminded the explorers of "Old England." The crews were given holiday, and great joy prevailed. Natives soon brought them fish and venison for sale, and were keen to sell their children in exchange for knives, trinkets, and copper. As they advanced through the inlet, the fresh beauty of the country appealed to the English captain: "To describe the beauties of this region will be a very grateful task to the pen of a skilful panegyrist--the serenity of the climate, the pleasing landscapes, and the abundant fertility that una.s.sisted nature puts forth, require only to be enriched by the industry of man with villages, mansions, and cottages to render it the most lovely country that can be imagined."

A fortnight was spent among the islands of this inlet, which "I have distinguished by the name of Admiralty Inlet," and on 4th June 1792 they drank the health of the King, George III., in a double allowance of grog, and on his fifty-fourth birthday took formal possession of the country, naming the wider part of the strait the Gulf of Georgia and the mainland New Georgia. The two ships then made their way through the narrow and intricate channels separating the island of Vancouver from the mainland of British Columbia, till at last, early in August, they emerged into an open channel discovered by an Englishman four years before and named Queen Charlotte's Sound. Numerous rocky islets made navigation very difficult, and one day in foggy weather the _Discovery_ suddenly grounded on a bed of sunken rocks. The _Chatham_ was near at hand, and at the signal of distress lowered her boats for a.s.sistance. For some hours, says Vancouver, "immediate and inevitable destruction presented itself." She grounded at four in the p.m. Till two next morning all hands were working at throwing ballast overboard to lighten her, till, "to our inexpressible joy," the return of the tide floated her once more. Having now satisfied himself that this was an island lying close to the mainland, Vancouver made for Nootka Sound, where he arrived at the end of August.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VANCOUVER'S SHIP, THE _DISCOVERY_, ON THE ROCKS IN QUEEN CHARLOTTE'S SOUND. From a drawing in Vancouver's _Voyage_, 1798.]

At the entrance of the Sound he was visited by a Spanish officer with a pilot to lead them to a safe anchorage in Friendly Cove, where the Spanish ship, under one Quadra, was riding at anchor. Civilities were interchanged "with much harmony and festivity. As many officers as could be spared from the vessel, and myself dined with Senor Quadra, and were gratified with a repast we had lately been little accustomed to. A dinner of five courses, consisting of a superfluity of the best provisions, was served with great elegance; a royal salute was fired on drinking health to the sovereigns of England and Spain, and a salute of seventeen guns to the success of the service in which the _Discovery_ and _Chatham_ were engaged." But when the true nature of Vancouver's mission was disclosed, there was some little difficulty, for the Spaniards had fortified Nootka, built houses, laid out gardens, and evidently intended to stay. Vancouver sent Captain Broughton home to report the conduct of the Spaniards, and spent his time surveying the coast to the south. Finally all was arranged satisfactorily, and Vancouver sailed off to the Sandwich Islands. When he returned home in the autumn of 1794 he had completed the gigantic task of surveying nine thousand miles of unknown coast chiefly in open boats, with only the loss of two men in both crews--a feat that almost rivalled that of Captain Cook.