AFRICAN EXPLORERS OF TEE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 187 
details gathered from the reports of the Royal Geo¬ 
graphical Society, for the traveller’s journal and the 
notes he took are alike lost to us. 
We have already told how Laing managed to fix 
pretty accurately the position of the sources of the 
Niger. We have also described the efforts made by 
Mungo Park and Clapperton to trace the middle portion 
of the course of that river. We have now to narrate 
NATIVE REVELRY. 
the journeys made in order to examine its mouth and 
the lower part of its course. The earliest and most 
successful was that of Richard Lander, formerly Clap- 
perton’s servant. 
Richard Lander and his brother John proposed to the 
English Government that they should be sent to explore 
the Niger to its mouth. Their offer was accepted, and 
they embarked on a government vessel for Baclagry, 
where they arrived on the 19th March, 1830. 
