172 clapperton's second journey. 



companions increase, urged them either to remain behind 

 or return to Badagry. They insisted on proceeding ; but 

 next day Dr. Morrison could struggle no longer, and de- 

 parted for the coast : he died before reaching it. Captain 

 Pearce persevered to the last, and sunk on the road, breath- 

 ing his last at nine in the evening of the 27th. Clapperton 

 was thus left to pursue his long and adventurous journey in 

 very painful and desolate circumstances. He had only a 

 faithful servant, Richard Lander, who stood by him in all 

 his fortunes, with Pascoe, a not very trusty Afidcan, whom 

 he had hired at Badagry. 



After a journey of sixty miles, the travellers entered the 

 kingdom of Yarriba, called also from its capital Eyeo. This 

 country had long been reported on the coast as the most 

 populous, powerful, and flourishing of all Western Africa, 

 holding even Dahomey in vassalage. It answered the most 

 favourable descriptions given of it ; the fields were exten- 

 sively cleared, and covered with thriving plantations of In- 

 dian corn, millet, yams, and cotton. A loom nearly similar 

 to that used in England was busily plied ; the women were 

 spinning and dyeing the cloths with their fine indigo. These 

 African dames were also seen going from town to town 

 bearing large burdens on their heads, — an employment 

 shared by the numerous wives of the king of Eyeo ; their 

 majesties having nothing to f'istinguish them from the hum- 

 blest of their fellow-countrywomen. Amid these laudable 

 occupations, they exercised their powers of speech with 

 such incessant perseverance as to confirm the Captain in 

 what appears to have been with him an old maxim, that no 

 power on earth, not even African despotism, can silence a 

 woman's tongue ; yet, as this loquacity seems to have been 

 always exerted in kindness, he need not, we think, have 

 groaned quite so heavily imder its stunning influence. 



The English travellers were agreeably surprised by the 

 reception which they experienced during this journey. In 

 Houssa they had laboured under the most dire proscription 

 as Caffres, enemies of the prophet, and foredoomed to hell ; 

 and, as black is there the standard of beauty, their colour 

 was considered by the ladies a deep leprous deformity, de- 

 tracting from every quality that might otherwise have been 

 agreeable in their persons. With the negro and pagan 

 Eyeos there was no religious ermiity ; and having under- 



