142 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
This was a check to Clapperton’s farther inquiries. 
On every side he was met with embarrassed silence or 
such replies as, “ The affair happened so long ago, I can’t 
remember it,” or, “ I was not witness to it.” The place 
where the boat had been stopped and its crew drowned 
was pointed out to him, but even that was done 
cautiously. A few days later Clapperton found out that 
the former Imaun, who was a Fellatah, had had Mungo 
Park’s books and papers in his possession. Unfor¬ 
tunately, however, this Imaun had long since left Boussa. 
Finally, when at Coulfo, the explorer ascertained beyond 
a doubt that Mungo Park had been murdered. 
Before leaving Borgu, Clapperton recorded his con¬ 
viction of the baselessness of the bad reputation of 
the inhabitants, who had been branded everywhere as 
thieves and robbers. He had completely explored their 
country, travelled and hunted amongst them alone, and 
never had the slightest reason to complain. 
The traveller now endeavoured to reach Kano by 
way of Zouari and Zegzeg, first crossing the Quorra. 
He soon arrived at Fabra, on the May arrow, the resi¬ 
dence of the queen-mother of Nyffe', and then went to 
visit the king, in camp at a short distance from the town. 
This king, Clapperton tells, was the most insolent rogue 
imaginable, asking for everything he saw, and quite 
unabashed by any refusal. His ambition and his calling 
in of the Fellatahs, who would throw him over as soon 
as he had answered their purpose, had been the ruin of 
his country. Thanks indeed to him, nearly the whole of 
the industrial population of Nyffe had been killed, sold 
into slavery, or had fled the country. 
Clapperton was detained by illness much longer than 
he had intended to remain at Coulfo, a commercial town 
on the northern banks of the May arrow containing from 
twelve to fifteen thousand inhabitants. Exposed for the 
last twenty years to the raids of the Fellatahs, Coulfo 
had been burnt twice in six years. Clapperton was 
witness when there of the feast of the New Moon. On 
that festival everyone exchanged visits. The women 
wore their woolly hair plaited and stained with indigo. 
