Soon after this, Mr. Laird having resolved to abandon the expedition, returned to Fernando Po in the Quorra. Dr. Briggs, the medical officer attached to the expedition, had died in February; and only three or four of the original crew of the vessel survived.
We shall now follow Mr. Oldfield's narrative. As Mr. Laird was on his return to Fernando Po, he passed the Alburkah, with Messrs. Lander and Oldfield on board, on their way to Boussa. They entered the Tshadda on the 2d August, and sailed 104 miles up the stream, till the want of provisions compelled them to return to the Niger. They remained for some time at Kacunda, Egga, and Rabba, but their efforts to open a trade with the natives were by no means successful. At Rabba, they were compelled to return, in consequence of the steamer's engine having sustained some damage. They returned to the sea-coast, but had scarcely arrived when Lander departed to Cape Coast Castle to procure a supply of cowries. Mr. Oldfield proceeded with the Alburkah to meet him. The voyage was slow, for the machinery had got out of order; great mortality prevailed on board the vessel; the Kroometi began to disobey orders; and there were rumours abroad, that the natives, knowing their weakness and diminished numbers, intended to attack and plunder the vessel. On the 28th of March, Mr. Oldfield received a letter from Richard Lander, which stated that his boat had been attacked, three of the crew killed, and himself wounded; that the other three men who were with him had been seriously hurt; that they had been plundered of every thing, and had with difficulty escaped. This fatal accident happened when he was opposite to the towns called Hyamma and Ikibree. The natives tempted by the value of the goods which he carried with him in several canoes, opened a fire of musketry upon him. Lander and his men defended themselves as long as they could, but they were at length compelled to flee. Their pursuers continued to fire; and as Lander stooped to take up some ammunition, he received a musket shot, and the ball lodged in the upper part of his thigh. The wound at first seemed slight, and he was enabled to reach Fernando Po; but all efforts to extract the ball were useless, and mortification of the muscles having ensued, he expired on the thirteenth day after the attack.
The Alburkah proceeded up the river no farther than Attah, where Mr. Oldfield procured a considerable quantity of ivory. The greater part of the crew had been cut off by fever and dysentery, four only being fit for duty. As soon, therefore, as Mr. Oldfield heard of Mr. Lander's death, he resolved to return to the coast, which he reached in July 1834.
We have now completed the sketch of those discoveries in Central Africa, which have taken place since the time of Park, and have endeavoured to make it as interesting as our restricted limits permitted. The scenery through which we have passed has been varied and sometimes beautiful; but the beauty has been wild and uncultivated, and has been more than counterbalanced by the oft-times stern aspect of nature, darkened by the frowns of an ungenial and unhealthy sky, in too faithful keeping with the actions of savage men, cruel and revengeful, sunk in vice and immorality. The narrative has been one of suffering and untimely death; one adventurer after another has gone forth, while scarcely one has returned from his toilsome and perilous wanderings; and the melancholy list has been closed by the fate of him who had the proud honour of tracing the termination of the mysterious river. Though each has displayed high and peculiar qualities of mind, not one has surpassed him whose energy and force of character in a great measure paved the way for succeeding travellers. Yet none will have fallen in vain, inasmuch as each has done something to point out the way whereby the blessings of civilization may be conveyed to the natives of Africa. The time may yet be distant, but it will assuredly come, when commerce and enlightenment shall be conveyed by the great channel of the Niger; when slavery shall be finally and for ever destroyed; and when, above all, the same blessed influence shall pervade Central, which had already done so much good in Southern Africa; when the voice of the missionary, which has been already blessed in raising up from the ground the degraded Hotentot, shall be heard in the huts that border the great river; when the natives shall cast away their idols, and with them, those vices which degrade and sully their character.