CAPTAIN TUCKEY’S NARRATIVE. 223 
would occupy the whole of the next day in palavering, and 
as Dr. Smith, Dawson, and Butler, were so very ill, that an 
hours delay in reaching the ship might prove fatal, I seized 
all the canoes, and a foomoo. 
Sept..16. Unable at day-light to procure any canoe men, I 
set off with our own people, and at 3 P.M. reached the Congo. 
Terrible report of the state on board : coffins. - - - - - 
Sept.17. At day-light sent off all the sick in double boats, as 
well as the people who had been up with me, to the transport; 
hired fifteen black men to assist in taking the Congo down 
the river below Fetish rocks. The river bordered by a level 
plain, four miles deep, to hills of little elevation. Good 
place for a settlement 
Mangroves commence at the east end of Tall Trees island. 
Muddiness of water and red colour begins at the - - - - 
land, which latter is a bar of sand covered with clay, and 
under water when the river is at its heighth. 
Extraordinary quiet rise of the river shews it, I think, to 
issue chiefly from some lake, which had received almost the 
whole of its water from the north of the line. 
Commencement of its rise was first observed above Yel- 
lala, on the Ist of September; on the 17th of September, at 
Tall Trees it had risen seven feet, but the velocity was not 
at all encreased. 
