Dixon Denham
[3] Denham was considered a brave soldier, who had carried his wounded commander out of the line of fire at the Battle of Toulouse, and had become a close acquaintance of the Duke of Wellington, with whom he regularly corresponded.
[6] Denham had met the explorer Captain George Lyon on the latter's return to London from Africa, and became determined to join the British government's second mission to establish trade links with the west African states.
Perhaps because of his influential acquaintances, Denham's wish was granted and, now promoted to Major, he was despatched by Lord Bathurst in the autumn of 1821 to join the other members of the mission, Dr Walter Oudney and Lt. Hugh Clapperton, arriving at Tripoli aboard the schooner Express on 19 November.
Denham eventually left Tripoli on 5 March with an escort of 210 mounted Arab tribesmen, reaching Murzuk only to find his two compatriots in a wretched condition, Clapperton ill of an ague, and Oudney with a severe cold.
Denham soon returned to Tripoli, to seek further funds, and to persuade the bashaw, Yusuf Karamanli, to provide the essential escort to protect the mission on its journey south to Bornu.
He had already made himself unpopular, leading Clapperton to write to Sir John Barrow: 'His absence will be no loss to the Mission, and a saving to his country, for Major Denham could not read his sextant, knew not a star in the heavens, and could not take the altitude of the sun'.
Duly alarmed, the bashaw wrote to him, proposing that the 300 – man escort of a wealthy merchant about to depart for Bornu could, for a fee of 10,000 dollars to be shared with him, be persuaded to protect the mission as well.
Clapperton and Oudney were in poor health, having succumbed to fevers, and all were overwrought as they made their way due south across the Sahara, the route littered with the skeletal remains of slaves that had perished of thirst.
[7] After quarrelling again over leadership of the party, Oudney and Clapperton set out for the Hausa states in December 1823, while Denham remained behind to explore the western, southern and south-eastern shores of Lake Chad and the lower courses of the rivers Waube, Logone and Shari.
[9] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society,[10][11] and in December that year, promoted to lieutenant-colonel, he sailed for Sierra Leone as Superintendent of Liberated Africans, charged with resettling the slaves rescued by the British naval squadron and landed at Freetown.
Denham spent some months surveying the neighbourhood of Freetown, and towards the end of the year started on a visit of inspection to Fernando Po, where the British leased bases for their anti-slavery patrols.
The major was completely plundered and stripped, and had it not been for his horse, under whose stomach he clung with the skill of an Indian rider, and was borne with a headlong gallop from his barbarous pursuers, he never could have made his way back to Kouka, the capital of Bornou.'
They set out from Tripoli in the month of March, reached Mourzouk, the capital of Fez, and, following the route which at a later period Dr. Barth was to pursue on his way back to Europe, they arrived, on 16 February 1823, at Kouka, near Lake Tchad.
