In their journal we find a vivid sketch of a Negro army marching from Bornou to the South, with horsemen in coats-of-mail, as in the days of chivalry, and armed, as in those days, with lances and bows and arrows.  A glowing description is given of the ravages that attended their march.  When they entered an enemy’s country, desolation marked their path, houses and corn-fields were destroyed, all the full-grown males were put to death, and the women and children reduced to servitude.

It was obvious that an incessant struggle was in progress between the Mahometan and Negro states, and that the Mahometan faith and Arab blood were slowly gaining an ascendency over the Negro even down to the equator.  The conquering tribes, by intermarriage with the females, were gradually changing the race, and introducing greater energy and intelligence; and the mixed races have exhibited great proficiency in various branches of manufacture.  The invaders took with them large herds of cattle, and pursued a pastoral life, leaving the culture of the land principally to the Negro.

In 1825 Clapperton made his second expedition to the interior, accompanied by Richard Lander.  In this journey the adventurous travellers landed at Badagry, and crossed through Yarriba to the Niger.  On their way they spent several days at Katunga, the capital of Yarriba, a city so extensive that one of its streets is described as five miles in length.  The town of Koofo, with twenty thousand inhabitants, as also large cotton-plantations, are mentioned by these travellers; and some idea of the territory they explored may be formed from the following extract from their narrative:—­

“The further we penetrate into the country, the more dense we find the population to be, and civilization becomes at every step more strikingly apparent.  Large towns, at a distance of only a few miles from each other, we were informed, lay on all sides of us, the inhabitants of which pay the greatest respect to the laws, and live under a regular form of government.”

It is to this fertile, populous, and peaceful region of the interior that the most successful efforts of the English missionaries have been of late directed.

In this expedition, Captain Clapperton died of the fever of the country.  His faithful servant, Lander, after publishing his journal, returned to Africa, in 1830, with his brother, landed at Badagry, and again crossed the country to the Niger.

At Boussa, they obtained the first authentic information of the death of Park, and recovered his gun, robe, and other relics.  Here, embarking in canoes, they ascended the river through its rapids to Yaouri, and thence traced it to the sea in the Bight of Benin.  On their way, they discovered the Benue, which joins the Niger two hundred and seventy miles from the ocean, with a volume of water and a width nearly equal to its own.  They encountered a large number of canoes, nearly fifty feet in length, armed in some cases with a brass six-pounder at the bow, and each manned by sixty or seventy men actively engaged in the slave-trade.  Forty of these canoes were found together at Eboe, near the mouth of the Niger.