king's ships to accompany the late enterprizing
traveller Belzoni, as interpreter, in his last and fatal journey.

It appears, that during their stay at Whidah, every inquiry was made
after Bello and his messengers, but without the slightest success,
and equally so as to Funda and Raka, names never heard of on that
part of the coast. It is now known that these places are nearly two
hundred miles inland, and that Raka is not even on the banks of any
river, and that neither of them was then under the dominion of Bello.

Badagry, the capital of a small territory, is situated at the mouth
of the Lagos river, in latitude 6 deg. 20', and is much frequented by the
Portuguese slave-merchants, who have five factories there. Canoes
being obtained, the party proceeded slowly up a branch of this river,
as far as the mouth of the Gazie creek, which comes from the
north-west, running through part of the kingdom of Dahomy, having its
rise in the country called Keeto. They ascended this creek for about
a mile and a half, and then landed on the western bank, at a place
called Bawie, where a market is held for the people of Badagry and
the adjacent towns. The very first night, they were guilty of a fatal
imprudence. The banks of both these streams are low and covered with
reeds; the soil a red clay mixed with sand; and the surrounding
country is covered with forests of high trees and jungle. Not a hum
of a single mosquito was to be heard. Every circumstance combined to
create an atmosphere fatal to animal life, and the consequence of the
unaccountable disregard of all precaution on the part of the
travellers was too soon apparent. The seeds of those diseases were
here sown, in the very first night of their journey, which speedily
proved fatal to two of the party, and had nearly carried off the
whole. How an old naval surgeon and two experienced naval officers
could commit such an imprudence, in such a climate, is to us most
surprising, when most dreadful consequences are well known to have
almost invariably resulted from such a practice in tropical climates,

On the 9th of December, they again slept in the open air, in the
market-place of Dagmoo, a large town, where they might have had as
many houses as they wanted. This reckless indifference to the
preservation of their health can only be accounted for on the
principle, that on an expedition attended by so many difficulties and
privations, it was deemed justifiable to attempt to inure