130 
LEAVE THE CONELUEVCE. 
clear after the rain. While looking upon these great 
highways for the advance of civilization into the 
interior of Africa — the Niger, with its rich tropical 
vegetation, and the more open and broad expanse of 
the Tchadda, flowing smoothly from the eastward, with 
the hills in the far distance to the northward and 
eastward, I could not but grieve that such a country 
was about to be abandoned by civilized man ; and that 
an enterprise which had originated in the most noble 
of human motives, with all appliances that human 
ingenuity and human foresight could devise for a suc- 
cessful issue ; with success granted, for a while, even 
to our utmost wishes, was now, alas ! doomed to so 
melancholy a termination. 
Deeply impressed with the sublimity of the scene, 
and with a feeling of thankfulness that during the sad 
reign of sickness and death, some of us were still 
mercifully protected, I returned to the settlement, 
where my thoughts were soon engaged in the more 
immediate and pressing occupation of making prepa- 
ration to resume the downward voyage. 
10 A.M. — Having completed all arrangements, and 
delivered written orders to the persons left in charge 
of the farm and ship respectively, the sick were 
brought on board the ' Albert at a quarter past ten 
the steam was up, and the anchor weighed. At noon 
we were off Adda Kudu. At two p.m. at Ikori market, 
and shortly afterwards at the Bird Rock, where the 
water seemed to have fallen several feet. The current 
