PASSAGE TO ASCENSION. 
159 
pitable style, the officers who had an opportunity of 
visiting the shore. 
Touching in at St. Anna de Chaves, the capital of 
St. Thomas’ Island, on the 24th, thence skirting along 
the coast, — which for diversity and luxuriance of 
landscape can hardly be surpassed, — the ‘Albert’ 
anchored near the Island of Rollas. II.M.S. ‘Pluto’ 
was lying there in a sickly condition, having a number 
of her crew laid up with fever. Poor Duffield, the 
second master, who had accompanied Mr. Carr to the 
inside of the Brass river, had already fallen a victim, 
and some of the others were in a critical state. Three 
or four of the sick were sent on board the ‘ Albert,’ 
for passage to Ascension, one of whom, Tom Davis, a 
Kruman, died soon after of consumption. After 
wooding and watering, the ‘Albert’ proceeded to 
Annobone, thence on to Ascension, where she arrived 
on the 28th January. During the passage the sick 
improved rapidly, particularly after having passed to 
the southward of the Equator, when the alteration 
became almost daily apparent. Even Duncan, who had 
suffered so terribly from mortification of the foot, — 
succeeding his attack of fever, — was beginning to 
rally from his protracted illness ; and the refreshing sea 
breezes at Ascension together with the quiet of an 
hospital gradually restored him, and many others, 
who had been reduced to the verge of the grave. 
The fatal character of the fever which had thus 
frustrated the objects of the Expedition, and dis- 
