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AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
CHAPTER V. 
African Explorers of the Early Part of the 
Nineteenth Century —( continued). 
So soon as Clapperton arrived in England, he submitted 
to Lord Bathurst his scheme for going to Ivouka via the 
Bight of Benin—in other words by the shortest way, a 
route not attempted by his predecessors—and ascending 
the Niger from its mouth to Timbuctoo. 
In this expedition three others were associated with 
Clapperton, who took the command. These three were 
a surgeon named Dickson, Pearce, a ship’s captain, and 
Dr. Morrison, also in the merchant service ; the last- 
named well up in every branch of natural history. 
On the 26tli November, 1825, the expedition arrived 
in the Bight of Benin. For some reason unexplained, 
Dickson had asked permission to make his way to 
Sockatoo alone, and he landed for that purpose at 
Whydali. A Portuguese named Songa, and Columbus, 
Denham’s servant, accompanied him as far as Dahomey. 
Seventeen days after he left that town, Dickson reached 
Char, and a little later Yaourie, beyond which place he 
was never traced.* 
The other explorers sailed up the Bight of Benin, 
and were warned by an English merchant named Houtson, 
not to attempt the ascent of the Quorra, as the king of 
the districts watered by it had conceived an intense 
hatred of the English, on account of their interference 
with the slave-trade, the most remunerative branch of 
his commerce. 
* Dickson quarrelled with a native chief, and was murdered by his 
followers. See Clapperton’s ‘ Last Joiu’ney in Africa.’— Trans. 
