PREPAKING FOR THE NIGER. 
321 
There are few places on the Coast of Africa more 
suitable for a settlement than the Bay of Amboises. 
As usual, on returning to Fernando Po to keep the 
magnetic term clay, all eyes watched tlie opening of 
the point forming Clarence Cove, nothing however, was 
to be seen there but the ‘ Golden Spring,' which had 
so often raised our hopes and disappointed them. 
The time had now nearly arrived, when Captain 
Allen had resolved if no orders to the contrary were 
received, to renew the operations of the Expedition 
by re-ascending the Niger with ^ Wilberforce' and 
' Soudan/ We therefore began seriously to make 
preparations, by taking on board as large a quantity of 
coals as possible, which would enable us to pass the 
dangerous parts of the river without delaying to cut 
wood; and if, on the contrary, orders should arrive in 
the meantime for us to return to England, we might 
be able to make a long stretch homewards, before re- 
quiring another supply. 
Some newspapers brought by the ‘Ethiope' of the 
13th and 29th of April, contained no allusion to the 
Expedition. The first had, a simple notice of 
the promotion of Captain William Allen, which, in 
the absence of any other motive, had the eiffect of 
deciding and rather hastening our departure. The 
dispatches announcing the intentions of re-entering 
the river, which had been sent from Ascension, on 
the 12th of February, having had two months to reach 
VOL. IL 
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