ouston agreed to ride
alternately. The former, however, who had almost crippled himself the
preceding day, with a pair of new boots, and could only wear
slippers, became so galled by riding without a saddle, that he was
soon reduced to walk bare-foot, and whenever he crossed an ant path,
his feet felt as if on fire, these insects drawing blood from them
and his ankles.

After a most toilsome and distressing march, part of which wound
through thick and dark woods, the morning proved raw, cold and hazy;
the travellers had nothing to eat, and when at noon they reached the
town of Humba, Captain Clapperton had a slight fit of ague. On the
following day, bearers were with some difficulty procured, and he was
carried forward in a hammock. At Bedgie, which they reached on the
12th, Dr. Morrison became very unwell with symptoms of fever. This
place stands on the banks of a river about a quarter of a mile in
width, full of low swampy islands and floating reeds. On the 14th,
Captain Pearce and Richard Lander were taken ill.

They had by this, time reached Laboo, a town situated on a rising
ground, where the country begins to undulate in hill and dale. Its
distance from the coast is not specified, but it can hardly be so
much as fifty miles, as Lagos can be reached in one day by a
messenger, yet the journey had occupied the travellers no fewer than
seven days. The delay seems partly to have been occasioned by the
heavy baggage and stores, and by the difficulty of obtaining bearers.
The Eyeo people, as they were afterwards told, are unaccustomed to
carry hammocks, and they ought to have proceeded on horseback, in
fact, Lander did not hesitate to express himself in rather severe
terms, in regard to the manner in which the early part of the
expedition was conducted; for, had the plan been adopted of making
use of horses for the conveyance of the baggage, and not have allowed
themselves to be delayed by the difficulty of procuring human
assistance; had the whole party pressed forward to Laboo, and there
attempted to recruit their strength, it is highly probable that they
would have altogether escaped the poisonous effects of the miasmata.

The country thus far appears to have been an almost perfect level; in
some places swampy, for the most part covered with dense forests, but
partially cultivated, and very populous. Towns and villages were
numerous, and everywhere on the road they were met by numbers of
people, chiefly women, bea