INTRODUCTION.

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 overran; and many of the petty chiefs still continue in a state of rebellion, some of them within a day’s journey of his capital. In the course of frequent conversations held with this chief, at his usual residence 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 a consul should be appointed to reside at another sea-port, called Raka ; to the former of which places, he said, he would despatch 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 measures for putting an entire stop to that part of the slave-trade supposed to be carried on by his subjects with foreigners.

On the arrival of Clapperton in England, Lord Bathurst, then secretary of state for the colonies, considering this so favourable an opportunity of establishing an intercourse with the interior of Africa, and probably of putting an effectual check, through this powerful chief, to a large portion of the