obliged to stop, though the Niger
was only five days' journey to the west. Worn out with his travel he
returned by way of Zaria and Katsena to Kuka, where he again met Denham.
The two travellers then set out for Tripoli, reached on the 26th of
January 1825. An account of the travels was published in 1826 under the
title of _Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central
Africa in the years 1822-1824_.

Immediately after his return Clapperton was raised to the rank of
commander, and sent out with another expedition to Africa, the sultan
Bello of Sokoto having professed his eagerness to open up trade with the
west coast. Clapperton landed at Badagry in the Bight of Benin, and
started overland for the Niger on the 7th of December 1825, having with
him his servant Richard Lander (q.v.), Captain Pearce, R.N., and Dr
Morrison, navy surgeon and naturalist. Before the month was out Pearce
and Morrison were dead of fever. Clapperton continued his journey, and,
passing through the Yoruba country, in January 1826 he crossed the Niger
at Bussa, the spot where Mungo Park had died twenty years before. In
July he arrived at Kano. Thence he went to Sokoto, intending afterwards
to go to Bornu. The sultan, however, detained him, and being seized with
dysentery he died near Sokoto on the 13th of April 1827.

Clapperton was the first European to make known from personal
observation the semi-civilized Hausa countries, which he visited soon
after the establishment of the Sokoto empire by the Fula. In 1829
appeared the _Journal of a Second Expedition into the Interior of
Africa_, &c, by the late Commander Clapperton, to which was prefaced a
biographical sketch of the explorer by his uncle, Lieut.-colonel S.
Clapperton. Lander, who had brought back the journal of his master, also
published _Records of Captain Clapperton's Last Expedition to Africa ...
with the subsequent Adventures of the Author_ (2 vols., London, 1830).

CLAQUE (Fr. _claquer_, to clap the hands), an organized body of
professional applauders in the French theatres. The hiring of persons to
applaud dramatic performances was common in classical times, and the
emperor Nero, when he acted, had his performance greeted by an encomium
chanted by five thousand of his soldiers, who were called Angustals. The
recollection of this gave the 16th-century French poet, Jean Daurat, an
idea which has developed into the modern claque. Buying up a number of
tickets for a p