342 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY and reached the Haussa States, travelHng by the Tripoli-Fezzan route, but died of dysentery in Nupe. A little later Lyon and Ritchie went in from Tripoli, and in the years 1818-20 explored the Fezzan as far south as lat. 23°.

Ritchie died at Murzuk, but Lyon brought back a good deal of information about the Fezzan and the country to the south, including Bornu and the Haussa States. Their work was carried further by Major Denham, Captain Clapperton, and Dr. Oudney, who went in together by the Tripoli-Fezzan road, and succeeded in the years 1822-23 and 1824 in reaching Bornu and the Haussa States, travelling as far west as Sokoto, and as far south as the tenth parallel of latitude. The others returned safely — Oudney died in Bornu. Captain Clapperton, making a second journey by way of the West Coast in 1826, died at Sokoto. Major Laing, going in also from the north, reached Timbuctoo, and was murdered in the desert a little way from the town in 1828. The most famous of the expeditions from the north was that carried out by Dr. Barth and Mr. Richardson at the instance of Lord Palmerston between the years 1850-55, in which, though Mr. Richardson died. Dr. Barth was able to collect a mass of valuable information, afterwards published in five bulky volumes, which form the standard work upon the interior of the West African Soudan.

It was reserved for Clapperton's faithful servant, Richard Landor, to navigate the Lower Niger from the Boussa Rapids to its mouth in 1832. From this time onwards, expeditions were renewed upon the coast. The French took an active part in exploring the territory in which they were politically interested, and a certain amount of information with regard to the interior was acquired.

The change of civilised opinion with regard to the slave trade led in the meantime to corresponding changes in the administration of European settlements on the West Coast. Already in 1783 the trading rights of France in the Gambia had been made the subject of