Records of Captain Clapperton's Last Expedition to Africa

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. Richard Lander's vivid travel narrative follows Captain Clapperton's final British expedition into the African interior, from the departure from England in 1825 to the hard-won journey through Badagry, Wow Wow, Yariba, Nyffé, Kano, Soccatoo, and beyond. Born of restless curiosity and a lifelong hunger for adventure, Lander recounts his own early wanderings from Cornwall to the West Indies, Europe, and South Africa, where hardship, fever, storms, and shipwreck only strengthened his resolve to explore the unknown. Ignoring warnings from friends and doctors, he joins the mission to trace the Niger, and soon finds himself amid illness, death, and the tense realities of travel through a region marked by slave trading, political power, and suspicion. Blending autobiography, adventure, and ethnographic observation, Lander records local customs, marriage, beauty, burial rites, religion, law, government, warfare, trade, and daily life with wit, candor, and a strong sense of firsthand experience. He also offers a moving portrait of his loyalty to Clapperton, whom he nurses through his final illness in Soccatoo, and of the grief that follows the loss of his companions. Rich in atmosphere and detail, the book seeks to present Africa in its true and lively colors.