INTRODUCTION. xiii 
of those who had embarked in it. Yet, by a fatality that 
is almost inexplicable, never were the results of an an ex- 
pedition more melancholy and disastrous. Captain Tuckey, 
Lieutenant Hawkey, Mr. Eyre, and ten of the Congo’s crew, 
Professor Smith, Mr. Cranch, Mr. Tudor, and Mr. Galwey, 
in all eighteen persons, died in the short space of less than 
three months which they remained in the river, or within 
a few days after leaving theriver. Fourteen of the above- 
mentioned were of the party of thirty who set out on the 
land journey beyond the cataracts; the other four were 
attacked on board the Congo; two died in the passage 
out, and the serjeant of marines at the hospital at Bahia, 
making the total number of deaths amount to twenty-one. 
This great mortality is the more extraordinary, as it 
appears from Captain Tuckey’s journal that nothing could 
be finer than the climate, the thermometer never descend- 
ing lower than 60° of Fahrenheit during the night, and 
seldom exceeding 76° in the day time; the atmosphere 
remarkably dry ; scarcely a shower falling during the 
whole of the journey ; and the sun sometimes for three or 
four days not shewing himself sufficiently clear to enable 
them to get an observation. 
It appears indeed from the report of Mr. M¢ Kerrow, 
the assistant surgeon of the Congo, that though the greater 
number were carried off by a most violent fever of the 
remittant type, some of them appeared to have no other 
ailment than that which had been caused by extreme 
fatigue, and actually to have died from exhaustion. ‘I'he 
greater number however of the whole crew caught the 
fever, and some of them died of it who had been left on - 
board the Congo below the cataracts; “ but these,” as 
