88 
REPORTS FROM THE NIGER EXPEDITION. [Jan. 11, 1858. 
having been more rife among them and more troublesome in its 
effects, and I regret to say that among them one death has occurred. 
We have now been 87 days in the river, and are, as far as the 
Government party is concerned, as ready for work as the day we 
left the sea : such points as require alteration I shall mention in a 
separate despatch. 
This morning we felt it chilly, with the thermometer at 76°, 
though in the afternoon it will probably be close and roasting, with 
a heat of from 93° to 96° in the shade ; two daj^s ago the range 
extended from 72*5° to 98°, and in the sun ashore we have ex- 
perienced it as high as 149°. 
I have, &c., 
W. B. Baikie, 
In charge of the Niger Expedition. 
The Bight Hon. the Earl of Clarendon . 
Encampment near Jeba, 29th Oct. 1857. 
My Lord, — It is with much regret that I have to transmit to your 
Lordship information of the loss of the expedition steamer Day- 
spring, on a sunken rock near this place, on the forenoon of the 7th 
October. The Dayspring left Rabba on the afternoon of the 6th 
October, continuing her ascent the following morning, in the course 
of which she left the flat alluvial country which had long prevailed, 
and entered on a totally different region, the banks becoming stony, 
rocks showing in the river, and hills and mountains appearing 
ahead. About 10 o’clock we reached a place where a huge preci- 
pitous rock,' some 250 feet high, divided the river into two nearly 
equal channels. We inquired of a man whom we had shipped as a 
pilot at Rabba which channel to take, and followed his advice ; but 
on clearing this we found the river again divided into several pas- 
sages, through the largest of which the water was rushing impetu- 
ously at a rate of about six knots. We accordingly anchored, and 
Lieutenant Glover went in the gig to sound and examine the river. 
One channel, in which the current did not exceed five knots, and 
of a breadth of about sixty yards, was found to be free from rocks 
from side to side, and to have a depth of three fathoms. This we 
accordingly determined to try, some natives in a canoe alongside 
saying also that the passage was clear. In approaching it, however, 
we were obliged, on account of the direction of the current, to keep 
close to a rock on our left-hand side, on which, being caught by a 
