ffering from the tedious navigation, close
cabins, and effluvia from the falling river, lost one-fourth of their
number by fever, while the African Kroomen, accustomed to the climate
and sleeping on the open deck, enjoyed perfect health. It was the
intention of government to establish a model farm and mission at the
confluence of the Niger and Benue; but the officers, discouraged by
sickness, abandoned their original purpose, and the expedition proved
another failure, involving a loss of at least sixty thousand pounds.

After the lapse of twelve years, it was ascertained that private
steamers and sailing vessels were resorting to the Niger, and that an
active trade was springing up in palm-oil, the trees producing which
fringe the banks of the river for some hundreds of miles from the sea;
and in 1853, a Liverpool merchant, McGregor Laird, who had accompanied
the former expedition, fitted out, with the aid of government, the
Pleiad steamer for a voyage up the Niger.

One would imagine that by this time the British government would have
corrected their former errors; and a part were corrected. The speed of
this steamer surpassed that of her predecessors, and her draught did not
exceed five feet. She was well provided with officers, and a crew of
native Kroomen from the coast; and she was supplied with ample stores
of quinine. But, singular as it may appear, this steamer, destined, to
ascend the great rivers up which the former expedition found a strong
breeze flowing daily, was not furnished with a _sail_; and although the
banks of the Niger were lined with forest-trees, and the supply of coal
was sufficient for a few days only, not a single _axe_ or _saw_ was
provided for cutting wood, and the Kroomen hired from the coast were
compelled to trim off with shingle-hatchets nearly all the fuel used
in ascending the river,--and in descending, the steamer was obliged to
drift down with the current. Moreover, she was but one hundred feet
in length, with an engine and boiler occupying thirty feet of her
bold,--thus leaving but thirty-five feet at each end for officers, men,
and stores. Neither state-room, cabin, nor awning was provided on deck
to shelter the crew from an African sun.

With all these deficiencies, however, they achieved a partial triumph.
Entering the river in July, they ascended the southern branch, now
known as the Benue, for a distance of seven hundred miles from the sea,
reaching Adamawa, a Mahometan state