no 
INCREASING SICKNESS. 
October 3rd . — This day our hopes of penetrating 
further into the interior receired a finishing blow. 
Our arduous, enterprising, and kind chief, who was 
complaining yesterday, has now unmistakeable symp- 
toms of fever. Commander Bird Allen lies in a very 
critical state, and upwards of twenty others of our 
companions are completely prostrated. In short, of 
the whites at all fit for duty, there remain only one 
seaman, the serjeant, and one private of marines, 
John Huxley, sick attendant, John Duncan, master- 
at-arms, Mr. Willie, mate. Dr. Stanger, and myself. 
Mr. Willie, I fear, is not altogether well. How unfor- 
tunate is all this ! To be arrested as it were, at the 
very threshold of this fine open country, where the 
mountain ranges — tabular, rounded, and of all forms, 
seen afar, rising majestically on the clear horizon, in- 
vite us with all the interest and attraction that 
belongs to unknown regions. 
But in our present weakened condition, we are not 
fit to meet the contingency of getting aground, and 
other diflficulties likely to arise, in navigating a com- 
paratively unknown, and now falling river*. 
The time, therefore, seems now to have arrived 
when there is no reasonable prospect of our reaching 
Rabbah this season ; and no alternative left us but to 
return to the sea with all possible speed. 
* Dr. Stanger found by the marks on shore that the water had 
fallen fourteen inches on the 20th September, and on the 5th October 
not less than three feet. 
