Part 15

'In memory of Richard Lemon Lander, the discoverer of the source of the Niger, and the first Gold Medallist of the Royal Geographical Society.[101] He was born at Truro, in 1804, and died in the Island of Fernando Po in 1834, from wounds inflicted by the natives. This window is inserted by her Majesty's permission by some of his relations and friends, and by some of the Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society.'

This was in substitution for the tablet erected in 1834, and destroyed by the fire of 7th July, 1864.

His native place has not forgotten his fame, as the Doric column at Truro surmounted by his statue testifies. The plate on the foundation-stone bore this inscription: 'To honour the enterprise and sufferings of the brothers Richard and John Lander, natives of this town, and to commemorate the early fate of Richard, who perished on the Quorra, Ætat. 30.' And his name has been given to two places on the Niger. That he did not himself forget his Cornish home is clear from his having named an island on the river '_Truro_ Island,' and one of the high hills on its banks, '_Cornwall_ Mountain.'

A writer in the 'Annual Biography and Obituary' for 1834 says of him that 'Richard Lander was of short stature, but he possessed great muscular strength, and a constitution of iron.' No stranger could help being 'struck (as Sir Joseph Banks was with Ledyard) with the breadth of his chest, the openness of his countenance, and the restlessness of his eye. He was gifted in an eminent degree with that passive courage which is so requisite a qualification in an African traveller. His manners were mild, unobtrusive, and highly pleasing, which, joined to his cheerful temper and ingenuous handsome countenance, rendered him a favourite with everyone that knew him, by most of whom he was beloved in the fullest sense of that word.'

So greatly was Richard Lander beloved by the untutored Africans, that at various places in the interior where he had remained some time, as at Katunga, Boussa, Yaoorie, numbers of the inhabitants ran out of their huts to embrace him on his leaving, and with hands uplifted, and eyes filled with tears, they blessed him in the name of their gods.

The _Literary Gazette_ for 3rd May, 1834, had the following observations on Lander's death: 'Thus has another sacrifice to African discovery been made: a man whose character was of the highest human stamp. Calm and resolute, steady and fearless, bold and adventurous, never did there exist a more fit instrument for the undertaking of such exploits as those which have shed a lustre over his humble name. We cannot express the sorrow with which the sad calamity has filled us--it is a deep _private_ affliction, and a lasting _national_ regret.'

A pension of £70 a year was granted by the Government to Lander's widow, and a donation of £50 to his daughter; and a sum of 80 guineas which had been collected in Truro (with a view to presenting the Landers with a piece of plate) was diverted towards the cost of erecting the Lander column. An infant son of the same name died the same year as his father, and was buried in the churchyard of the Savoy.

I do not know that I can more suitably conclude these imperfect remarks than by quoting the following touching letter--I believe the last he ever wrote--as an illustration of his amiable, unselfish character:

'River Nun, 'Jan. 22, 1834.

'DEAR SIR,

'Having an opportunity of writing to you by King Boy (who will give it to King Obie to forward to you) I will avail myself of it. I was coming up to you with a cargo of cowries and dry goods worth £450, when I was attacked from all quarters by the natives of Hyammah off the fourth island from Sunday Island (eighty-four miles from the mouth of the Nun). The shot were very numerous both from the island and shore, Mrs. Brown and child were taken prisoners, whom I was bringing up to her husband, as well as Robert the boy. I have advanced King Boy money to go and purchase them; the vessel will call here immediately, as I am going to Fernando Po to get _the people's_ wounds attended to.

'We had 3 men shot dead: Thomson, second mate of the cutter, one Krooman, and one Cape Coastman. I am wounded, but I hope not dangerously, the ball having entered close to the "bottom of the spine," and struck the thigh bone: it is not extracted yet. Thos. Oxford is wounded in the groin, two Kroomen wounded dangerously and one slightly. I am sorry to say I lost all my papers and everything belonging to me, the boat and one canoe; having escaped in one of the canoes barely with a coat to our backs, they chasing us in their war-canoes; and all our cartridges being wet, we could not keep them off. They attacked us at 3 p.m. on the 20th January, and left us at 8 at night. We pulled all night and reached the cutter on the 21st. We are now under weigh for Fernando Po.

'I remain, 'Your most affectionate Friend, 'R. L. LANDER.

'To Surgeon Oldfield, '_Alburka_ Steamer, 'River Niger.'

Such was the fate of one who may be not unfairly described as one of the chief, if not the chief, of the pioneers of West African exploration. It is evident that access to the interior of the Dark Continent continues to engage the attention of travellers; for, according to the comments of a recent writer on the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in May, 1883:

'Africa has at no period of its history been so flooded with eager seekers after the unknown as at the present hour. Apart from the explorations for commercial and political purposes that are being carried out by French officers in Senegambia and on the Upper Niger and Congo, a Russian expedition under Rogozinzki, and an Italian one under Bianchi and Licata, have been planned to enter the country at the Bight of Biafra. These expeditions will probably be absent several years, for they are organized with the object of crossing through the unknown region between the Congo, the Benueh, and Lake Tchad, and of so eventually reaching Abyssinia. Numerous other travellers are either in the interior or making for the goal as best they can; and Mr. Stanley, in pursuance of his mission on the Upper Congo, is understood to have made a voyage up one of its greatest tributaries, and discovered a hitherto unsuspected lake of considerable magnitude. Another such sheet of water is believed to be not far from the Welle; and now that Mr. Joseph Thomson and Dr. Fischer are far on their way to examine the country between the sea and the northern end of Lake Nyassa, the snow-capped Mounts Kenia and Kilimandjaro promise before long to be removed from the region of myth. Messrs. O'Neill, Johnson, and Stewart's explorations in the same quarter are adding much to our acquaintance with a country hitherto little known, and as soon as the steamer can be carried in sections across the road cut between Nyassa and Tanganyika, the latter lake will become almost as well surveyed as Lakes Huron or Superior. Holub intends boring from one end of Africa to another, and without doing more than mentioning a few of the names which most readily suggest themselves, Böhm, Kaiser, Stecker, Giraud, Aubrey, Hamon, Revoil, and Schuver are among the many eager, and in most cases tried, explorers whose efforts or achievements in different parts of Africa during the past year deserve special remark. The scheme of international stations, started and carried out by the committee presided over by King Leopold, is rapidly joining the East and West Coast by a chain of civilized settlements, where the rude tribes can learn the arts of peace, and the weary explorers find the succour and assistance denied to their predecessors from the hour they entered the Dark Continent. Africa must before long become permeated with what Europeans call light, and, though the accounts of later travellers do not confirm the sanguine estimates of the earlier pioneers, the resources of its great forests, rich valleys, and mineral veins are at least capable of supporting a vastly greater trade than the country at present enjoys.'

Whatever may be the future of Africa, Richard Lander's name will always be remembered as that of one of the earliest and bravest of her explorers.

FOOTNOTES:

[95] There is a portrait of Richard Lander in the possession of the Royal Geographical Society, painted by W. Brockedon, F.R.S., and it was engraved by C. Turner, A.R.A.

[96] The Niger, so Herodotus heard, flowed from the west _eastward_--ἀπὼ ἑσπέρης πρὸς ἥλιον ἀνατέλλοντα [Greek: apô hesperês pros hêlion anatellonta].

Pliny first uses the word Niger or Nigris. He seems to have thought that the _Niger_ and Nile were somehow united; and Claudian seems to have fallen into the same mistake:

'Gèr notissimus amnis Æthiopum, simili mentitus gurgite Nilum.'

The French have a notion that the Senegal and the Niger may be connected by a cutting, by which means Timbuctoo might be conveniently approached, and trade opened up with the interior of Africa.

[97] On account of his short stature he was generally called by the natives in Africa 'Nasarah Curramee,' or Little Christian.

[98] Cowries are small shells, the medium of exchange with the natives: their present value is about one shilling per thousand.

[99] The 2nd of February is the date given by S. Tissington as that which was on the monument erected to Lander's memory in the Savoy Chapel by his widow and child.

[100] Baikie's 'Niger,' 1854.

[101] Namely, in 1832.

_THE REV. HENRY MARTYN, B.D._,

THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY AND ORIENTAL SCHOLAR.

_THE REV. HENRY MARTYN, B.D._,

THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY AND ORIENTAL SCHOLAR.

'Atque opere in medio defixa reliquit aratra.'

'Hopes have precarious life; They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer oft In vigorous youth and turned to rottenness; _But faithfulness can feed on suffering, And know no disappointment_.'

_Spanish Gypsy._

Anyone who would write the life of Henry Martyn, must feel that he is about to tread upon holy ground. For, however clearly we may see, on perusing his 'Journals and Letters,'[102] that his introspection was morbidly minute, his temper naturally irritable, and his religious views generally of the gloomiest as well as of an almost impracticable character, yet his ardent zeal, his saint-like devotion, his self-denial, and his deep humility, afford such an example of earnest piety as is rarely to be met with in the annals of the Church, since the days of the Apostles themselves. His very faults were but 'the shadows of his virtues,' and of Henry Martyn it might truly be said that to him--without religion--

'The pillared firmament was rottenness, And earth's base built on stubble.'

How much of this was due to that frequent correlation which, as Mr. Galton points out, frequently exists between an unusually devout disposition and a weak constitution, it would of course be hard to say.

I cannot help thinking that Martyn has been a little unfortunate in his biographer, the Rev. John Sargent, jun., although that writer's 'Memoir' has been so popular that I believe it has run through about a score of editions. There was a tardy apology for the tone of the book in the preface to the tenth edition--and an explanation to the effect that Martyn's religion was really by no means of a desponding character, and that few persons 'have equalled him in the enjoyment of that "peace which passeth all understanding."' If such were the case it is unfortunate that the extracts made by Mr. Sargent from Martyn's 'Journals' should have left so wide-spread an impression to the contrary--an impression which it is probably as fruitless to attempt to counteract as Mr. Sargent expected it would be.

Sargent appears to have sympathized chiefly with one side of Martyn's character, namely, the gloomy and self-torturing one, and the result is that to read the 'Memoir' harrows one's feelings. Very similar remarks apply to the 'Journals and Letters,' but in the latter, at least, we have only the man himself, and are spared the somewhat complacent tone in which his mental anguish and physical sufferings are depicted by his friend and biographer. Charles Kingsley used to say of Martyn: 'My mind is in a chaos about him. Sometimes one feels inclined to take him at his own word, and believe him, as he says, a mere hypochondriac; then the next moment he seems a saint. I cannot fathom it. Of this, however, I am certain, that he was a much better man than I am.' One great lesson, however, of this learned, brave, and good man's life--crowned as it surely was with the crown of the martyr, if ever mortal's brow were so adorned--appears to me to be this: that a life of seclusion, nay, almost isolation, such as his, defeats its own object, if that object be, like Martyn's, to influence our fellow-men. 'It is miserable,' he used to say, when thinking of the vast amount of sin there was in the world, 'it is miserable living with men;' and, again, 'a dried leaf or a straw makes me feel in good company.' And herein seems to lie a great difference between Martyn, notwithstanding his learning, his piety, and his dauntless courage amidst incessant perils, and such heroic Christian missionaries as were St. Paul and Bishop Heber, who had learnt to mix more freely with their fellow-men, and to combine the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove.

But to turn to the life itself. Henry Martyn, like Martin Luther, sprang from a family of mine captains, and was born at Truro, on Feb. 18th, 1781--the third child of a family of four. His father, who lived at first near Gwennap Church-Town, had been an Accountant at Wheal Virgin; and being, like many others of his calling, an ingenious and self-reliant man, taught himself arithmetic and some mathematics; his abilities attracted the attention of Mr. Daniell, one of the Truro merchants, and ultimately John Martyn became his chief clerk. 'The elder Martyn,' Polwhele says, 'was a tall, erect man, used to take his daily exercise under the Coinage Hall, which was opposite his house.' The house was pulled down to make room for the new Town Hall; it occupied the site of the present Police Station, as I am informed. Henry's great-uncle, Thomas Martyn, was the author of the large and excellent Map of Cornwall, known by his name.[103] He was a surveyor, and his map is said to have been the result of fifteen years' labour--the survey having been made on foot. He died in 1752-53. Henry's mother, from whom he seems to have inherited his delicate constitution, was a Miss Fleming of Ilfracombe; she died the year after he was born.

Henry Martyn--'little Henry Martyn,' as his schoolfellows used tenderly to call him--was sent at Midsummer, 1788, to that capital nest of so large a number of our most distinguished Cornishmen--the Truro Grammar School--and he is thus described by one of his fellow-pupils, the late Clement Carlyon, M.D., Fellow of Pembroke College, and thrice Mayor of Truro, in his 'Early Years and Late Reflections:' 'A good-humoured, plain little fellow, with red eyelids devoid of eye-lashes, and indicative of a scrofulous habit; and with hands so thickly covered with warts that it was impossible for him to keep them clean, or for his respected master,[104] who borrowed a large leaf out of Dr. Busby's book, to inflict on him, when idle, stripes over the back of his hand.' He seems to have improved in appearance as he grew older; but was always 'rather low in stature, and plain in person, though not disagreeably so;[105] whilst his amiable disposition[106] and sociability ensured him the esteem and friendship of all who were acquainted with him.' Though all his life long he was particularly fond of laughing and playing with little children, at school he seldom played with the other boys; and seems to have evinced no precocity, nor was he very studious, like his friend and school-fellow Kempthorne[107] (Senior Wrangler of 1796, and afterwards vicar of a church in Gloucester): nor did Martyn display the poetic vein of another of his colleagues, Humphry Davy.

At the Truro Grammar School, having failed in 1795 to obtain a Scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he remained till 1797, in which year he took up residence at St. John's College, Cambridge, where, from his assiduity, he was known as 'the man who had never lost an hour,' and was at once fortunate in securing the advice and friendship of his old acquaintance Kempthorne, who, as well as Martyn himself, soon came within the influence of a very earnest Low Church Divine, the Rev. Charles Simeon, a fellow of King's College, of whom it is only right to add that he more than once warned Martyn, whilst in the East, that he was overtaxing his strength and energies. To this clergyman Martyn was afterwards to become curate.

The death of his father in 1800 led Martyn to study the Bible most seriously; and he so read its pages as to determine upon basing his whole life upon its promises. He says, for instance, of his magnificent success in becoming the Senior Wrangler of his year (and that year was a distinguished one in the annals of the University): 'I obtained my highest wishes, but was surprised to find I had grasped a shadow!' Indeed, it is said that, when he entered the Senate House for the examination, and saw the unusually large number assembled there, he ejaculated, with apparently some inconsistency, the text: 'Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not, saith the Lord.' In 1802 he became Fellow and Tutor of his college, and gained the first prize for Latin prose composition, thus compensating amply for his lack of success in 1799, when he failed to obtain the prize for themes in his college, and came out second instead of first, as was expected, at the examination.

He now returned to his native place for a short time, for much-needed rest and change; not, however, staying much at Truro, but passing most of his holiday at Woodbury, just below Malpas, on the Fal, the residence of his brother-in-law, Rev. Mr. Curgenven (curate of the parishes of Kenwyn and Kea). These were amongst the happiest moments of his life. He says, either of this place or Lamorran (and the description is applicable to either): 'The scene is such as is frequently to be met with in this part of Cornwall. Below the house is an arm of the sea flowing between the hills, which are covered with wood. By the shore I walk in general, in the evening, out of the reach of all sound but the rippling of the water and the whistling of the curlew.'

On his return to Cambridge in the following October, conversations with Mr. Simeon, instigated by a perusal of the 'Life and Labours of David Brainerd among the North American Indians,' gave rise to Martyn's intense desire to become a missionary; and, notwithstanding his alleged appreciative enjoyment of a literary and social life at home, he offered his services to a Missionary Society. They were not, however, accepted; and after having been ordained at Ely in October, 1803, he became Mr. Simeon's curate--preaching sometimes at Lolworth, a church six miles from the University, on the Huntingdon road, and sometimes at Trinity Church, Cambridge. Simeon always continued a friend and admirer of Martyn, and had his portrait hung up over his fireplace. He often used to look up at it with affectionate earnestness: 'There!' he used to say, 'see that blessed man! What an expression of countenance! No one looks at me as he does--he seems always to be saying, "Be serious, be in earnest; don't trifle--_don't_ trifle." 'Then he would smile at the picture, and gently bow, and add: 'And I won't trifle--I won't trifle.'

Early in 1804, Martyn, as well as his younger sister, Sally (Mrs. Pearson), to whom he seems to have been fondly attached, had the misfortune to lose all their patrimony; an event which, in addition to the causes already referred to, probably led to his making a second effort (which was also at the time unsuccessful) to procure an appointment as a missionary--this time in the form of a 'chaplaincy' to the East India Company. This year was further memorable from Martyn's making the acquaintance of a kindred spirit--the poet, H. Kirke White (also a Johnian), 'a religious young man of seventeen, who wants to come to college, but has only £20 a year.'

Another visit to his solitary retreat in Cornwall refreshed him during the summer, and whilst there he preached to a crowded congregation at Kenwyn Church from 2 Cor. v. 20, 21: 'Now we are ambassadors,' etc. (a very favourite text of his), and availed himself of the opportunity, before returning to Cambridge on 18th of September, 1804, to take leave of his county and friends, in view of the probability of his soon getting the desired appointment under the East India Company. On his way back to the University, as his journals testify, with characteristic zeal and devotedness, though, apparently, not always with tact and skill, he lost no opportunity, in season or out of season, of turning the conversation of his fellow-travellers to religious topics.

At this period of his life his usual routine seems to have been to rise every morning at about half-past five (and, if he failed to do so, his self-reproaches are most bitter); to work hard, either with his pupils, his flock, or his books; to pray at least four times a day, and to write at least one sermon a week. The Scriptures he doubtless read daily; and the spirit in which he read them may be seen from the following extract from his Journals, written when on board ship, on his way to India: 'Read Isaiah the rest of the evening--sometimes happy and at other times tired, and desiring to take up some other religious book; _but I saw it an important duty to check this slighting of the Word of God_.' And here it may be interesting to note the other works which seem to have been amongst Martyn's favourites. Of course, he kept up his mathematics and science; but the references to these in his Journals are slight and few. He often read the Greek plays, but his chief reading was, as might be expected, divinity; and especially St. Augustine, Grotius, Paley, Baxter, Hooker, Pearson, Fletcher's 'Portrait,' Flavel's 'Saint Indeed,' Searle's 'Christian Remembrancer,' Thomas à Kempis, Law's 'Serious Call,' Lowth, Bishop Hopkins, Jonathan Edwards's 'Original Sin,' and his work on the Affections, Whitfield's Journal, Leighton, Milner's 'Church History,' etc., etc.; and these were interspersed with the study of Hindostanee and other Oriental languages.

Martyn's religious position and views have been thus described in the _Edinburgh Review_ for July, 1844, by a writer who traces their origin to the well-known Clapham School of 'Evangelical' religion:

'From that circle he adopted, in all its unadorned simplicity, the system called Evangelical--that system of which (if Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Knox, and the writers of the English Homilies may be credited) Christ Himself was the author, and Paul the first and greatest interpreter.