AFRICAN EXPLORERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 137 
It would be much better, urged Houtson, to go to 
Badagry, no great distance from Sockatoo, the chief Oi 
which, well-disposed as he was to travellers, would doubt¬ 
less give them an escort as far as the frontiers of Yariba. 
Houtson had lived in the country many years, and was 
well acquainted with the language and habits of its 
people. Clapperton, therefore thought it desirable to 
attach him to the expedition as far as Katunga, the 
capital of Yariba. 
The expedition disembarked at Badagry on the 
29th November, 1825, ascended an arm of the Lagos, 
and then, for a distance of two miles, the Gazie creek, 
which traverses part of Dahomey. Descending the left 
bank, the explorers began their march into the interior 
of the country, through districts consisting partly of 
swamps and partly of yam plantations. Everything 
indicated fertility. The negroes were very averse to 
work, and it would be impossible to relate the numerous 
“ palavers ” and negotiations which had to be gone 
through, and the exactions which were submitted to, 
before porters could be obtained. 
The explorers succeeded, in spite of these difficulties, 
in reaching Jenneh, sixty miles from the coast. Here 
Clapperton tells us he saw several looms at work, as 
many as eight or nine in one house, a regular manufac¬ 
tory in fact. The people of Jenneh also make earthen¬ 
ware, but they prefer that which they get from Europe, 
often putting the foreign produce to uses for which it 
was never intended. 
At Jenneh the travellers were all attacked with 
fever, the result of the great heat and the unhealthiness 
of the climate. Pearce and Morrison both died on the 
27th September, the former soon after he left Jenneh 
with Clapperton, the latter at that town, to which he 
had returned to rest. 
At Assondo, a town of no less than 10,000 inhabi¬ 
tants, Daffou, containing some 5000, and other places 
visited by Clapperton on his way through the country, 
he found that an extraordinary rumour had preceded 
him, to the effect that he had come to restore peace to 
