JOURNAL OF A SECOND EXPEDITION INTO THE INTERIOR OF AFRICA from the Bight of Benin to Soccatoo

London: J. Murray, 1829. First Edition. Illustrated with one full page cartographic plan and a large folding map. 4to, later rebound in plain faux calf. xxiii, (3), 355 pp. A good reading copy of this important book, but without the portrait or title, though with the half-title complete. FIRST EDITION. “When the late Captain Clapperton made his way to Soccatoo for the first time, in the year 1824, he received the most flattering attentions and every mark of kindness, from Bello, the sultan of the Fellans, as they call themselves, or Fellatas, as they are called by the people of Soudan. This chieftain may be said to rule over almost the whole of that part of North Africa which is distinguished by the name of Houssa, though he appears to have lost a considerable portion of what his father, Hatman Danfodio, first over; and many of the petty chiefs still continue in a state of rebellion, some of them within a day’s journey of this capital. In the course of frequent conversations held with this chief , at his usual reasoned of Soccatoo, Clapperton was given to understand, that the establishment of a friendly intercourse with England would be most agreeable to him; that he wished particularly for certain articles of English manufacture to be sent out to him to the sea-coast, where there was a place of great commerce belonging to him, named Funda: he also expressed a wish that an English physician and consul should be appointed to reside at another seaport, called Raka; to the former of which places, he said, he would dispatch messengers to bring up the articles from England; and to the latter he would send down a proper person to transact all matters of business between the two governments, through the intervention of the English consul; and he made no difficulty in declaring his readiness to adopt measure for putting an entire stop to that part of the slave-trade supposed to carried on by his subjects with foreigners.” -From the introduction. Clapperton was the first European to report direct observation of Hausa countries.