The Sun.
London, England, 1831-06-18 00:00:00

THE LANDERS AND THE RIVER NIGER.

The two Landers arrived here on Tuesday last,
in the Willienz Barris transport, from Rio de Janeiro,
having reached that country from Fernando Po.
They both appear in good health, and state that in
their progress through Africa they found the climate
perfectly healthy, experiencing no inconvenience in
this regard, until they reached the pes!ilential in-
fluence of the coast and Fernando Po. These
travellers have, doubtless, thrown a Very considerable
light on African geography ; how far their discoveries
will be beneficial to our commerce, or enable us so
to communicate with the interior as to aid in the
suppression of the Slave Trade in its origin, remains
yet to be proved. It appears the Landers landed
at Badagry on the 22d March, 1830, and imme-
diately proceeded on horseback to the Northward,
to a city called Boussa, which is known to be on the
Niger, and which city is described to be of great
extent, being upwards of twenty miles in circum-
ference, though it may not contain more than four
thousand houses. These, however, in general, are
little better than huts, and like Timbuctoo, contains
no large buildings. It is situated about latitude 10
North. They remained nearly three months at this
place, and ascertained that it was not an island, as
had been supposed. The King of this place treated
them very kindly ; indeed they speak in high terms
of the kindness and gentleness of the negroes in the
interior, who, so far from offering to molest them,
afforded them all the information and assistance in
their power. It was only when they approached
the vicinity of the coast that they experienced insult
and impediment. During their sojourn at Boussa,
they made excursions round it, and ascended the
Niger against the stream for three days, visiting
another city, which will be found in Clapperton's
map, called Youri, directly north of Boussa. At
the end of the three months, during which time the
water in the river had been rising, from the influ-
ence of the rainy season, and which they were told
would be requisite to ensure their safe passage over
the rocks and other impediments, which form
rapids, &c., they began to descend, and soon found
the river ran easterly till they reached the vicinity
of Fonda; which city should be placed on the maps
at least two degrees further east than it now is.
Near Fonda the Niger was joined by a large river,
which, from description, was doubtless the Shary,
and which the natives said came in a direct line from
Tchad Lake, distant 15 days' journey in the north-
east—thus clearly proving that the Niger receives
from, instead of expending its waters in that lake.
With regard to the Tchad Lake, it was understood
it sent out its waters to other rivers further east than
Fonda, and running to the southward, most probably
supplying the great rivers Zaire and Congo. Below
Funda, at a place called Thirree, these adventurous
travellers
ar canoes. In the pursuit (it does not ap-
pear the Landers should have fled) their canoes
r 4. ‘o
o were pursued and captured by a fleet of 30
were swamped, and all their writings, collections,
and instruments were lost. This took place about
ten days'- journey from the coast. The natives of
Thirree, after their capture, treated them kindly,
and forwarded them towards the coast. Below
Funda they fell in with a river which branched to
the westward, and which they ascertained to be the
river
et
They reached the sea by the Nun
river, few miles to the eastward of Cape Formosa,
and about two degrees from Badagry, from whence
they started. They conjectured they had come
down the Niger at least 900 miles ; but having lost
their instruments and papers, they had no means Gf
ascertaining the exact position and distances of the
many towns they passed on either side of its banks.
When they arrived at the mouth of the Nun river,
they discharged a servant, Antonio, who set off up
the river to return to his own country; but on the
arrival- of the Landers at Fernando Po, they ascer..
rained that this servant, after proceeding up the
Nun river, branched off to the eastward, and
reached the coast again by the New Calabar river,
thus proving that the Beni!), the Nun, and the New
Calabar elvers were all mouths of the great Niger,
with a direct communication to the Tchad Lake.
were i n the interior, a
whovol:m After their capture they were purchased by a slave.
dealer, who doubtless knew he should obtain a good
price for giving them up. They reached the sea
about the 30th November, 1830. During the time
they
of
eloVmapt
at sn'yy
belonged s
wasl e
in
Hymns fell into their hands, which had formerly
kithMungo Park• at the time of his death.—
Hampshire Telegraph.
to
Dr.
Anderson,rei

On Wednesday morning, at three o'clock, as
four persons, a Mr. HALL and his wife, of Craven-buildings,
Drury-lane, and two young men, named ISNELL and
COnnER, were coming up the Thames in a small sailing-
boat from Gravesend, where they had been spending the
previous day, they ran foul of a vessel in Erith Reach,
when their boat filled and sunk, and Mr. and Mrs. HALL
were drowned.
The spirit of incendiarism, we regret to say,
is beginning to manifest itself again in some of the coun-
ties, as will be perceived by the annexed paragraph, copied
from the daily police report:-_" On the 2(1 inst., about
half-past eleven o'clock at night, a barn and lodge, con-
taining a quantity of oats and straw, on Nutiningham-
farm, near Battle, in Sussex, were set on fire and totally
destroyed. A reward of 3001. has been offered for the
apprehension of the incaldiarieS. On the 6th inst. the
outhouses on a farm called 11:ren's-grove, in the parish of
bßeaai
ititsh; n ,
consumed. Ken t were set fire to , and upwards of sixty
quarters of wheat, together with the same quantity of
were destroyed by the conflagration. A similar reward
has been offercd." On this farm two lodges and two barns

REFORM IN INDIA.

An arrival from Bombay has brought to England
he copy of a document of very great interest, and
closely connected with a subject of the highest poli-
kat importance. .It is the petition to the House of
Commons of the Christians, Hindoos, Parsees,
\lahometans, and Jews, natives of the British pos-
sessions in India, on the grievances they suffer under
he administration of Government as at present con-
a ituted in that part of the world; the remedy for those
zrievances ; and the rights and advantages to which
they aspire and claim from the humane and prudent
consideration of our Legislature. This petition is
understood to speak the sentiments of no less than
60,000,000 of human beings, all subjects of the
British empire in India. It commences with a grate-
ful acknowledgment of the benefit derived to the
natives from the establishment of the Supreme
Court of Judicature at Calcutta, and those which
have sprung from it, the Recorder's Court at Madras.
and the Supreme Court of Judicature at Bombay,
and combats the notion that such Courts are 'either
incompatible with their habits and feelings, or
that they are incompetent to susta7n their
share in theta, either as jurors or as witnesses.
For proof of the contrary, they appeal to the
experience of the last five years at all the three Pre-
sidencies. They complain, however, that the admi-
nistration of justice on a system atoll adapted to
their feelings is confined to the three Presidencies,
and that beyond them, throughout the whole interior
of the country, it is grosslyaieglected or perverted,
and the management of their courts such as to stamp
on them the character of a distinct, a conquered,
and a degraded people. They object also to the
criminal code prepared for them, as vague in its lan-
guage, as well as too severe in its punishments, and
left generally too much at the discretion of those
who administer it. This discretion is left, too, to
men who have little knowledge of, and no sympathy
with, them. Their decisions consequently are
charged"with beirg constantly arbitrary and unjust.
Most of the persons to whom these judicial func-
tions are intrusted are, as the petitioners affirm,
wholly incompetent ; being o netimes introduced
abruptly from the civil service into the administra-
tion of justice, and generally allowed to remain so,
short a time at each station, that, however able and
intelligent, they have not the opportUnity for ac-,
quiring the requisite knowledge.
The petitioners anticipate that a Reform in the
Indian provincial courts of justice will be extremely
unpalatable to their native princes, who have availed
themselves of them as a means of oppression and
violence; but assume that such a consideration, so
far from influencing the British Legislature, will
form the stronger induceMent for granting the Re-
form they solicit.
The petitioners claim in the most urgent and
energetic manner a participation, equally with
Europeans, in offices of trust and emolument, from
which they have been excluded by malevolent and
interested misrepresentations; setting forth their
pretensions to civilization and refinement, not with
them of recent date, but existing from remote ages,
' when the nations of Europe, now taking the lead
in civilization, lived in forests and fought with bows
and arrows and clubs. They state that they have
long felt the degrading despotism to which they
have been subjected from their local princes, and
perceived the superiority of the British rule, but
that all advances towards a closer union have been
repulsed by insult and contumely. They state,
however, that nothing is more easy than to attach
thatimMense population firmly- to the British em-
pire, justice to. them wisdly And
impartially, and by rewarding intellectual and moral
merit with honourable and profitable offices.
They suggest also, as a further means of pro-
moting this attachment, that the cultivation of the
English language should be as much as possible
promoted, and that a competent Acquaintance with
it. should, after a period of twelve years, be made
one of the conditions of the admission of the natives
into office. For this the foundation is already laid,
as, through the establishment of schools, and general
diffusion of education, great numbers have already
learnt the language.
This petition, of which copies have also been
forwarded in the Goozeratta and Maharatta lan-
guages, which are those most in use in Botnbay, is
signed by 4,000 of the most respectable inhabitants
of that presidency, and will be presented to the
House of Commons in the course of a few days.—
Times.

An extraordinary courier arrived on Thursday
forenoon at the residence of the Russian Embassy. The
despatches were immediately forwarded to Prince LIEVEN,
at Richmond.

Letters from Alexandria of the beginning of
May, mention the death of Captain WOODFALL, a gentle-
man who had been sent by the African Society in this
country to explore the intetior of Africa. Captain Woon-
ram. was to have penetrat,d into Africa through Abys-
sinia, and had arrived at Kourdefan, in the last okntioned
country, where death put an end to his career. The
Paella of EGYPT was building a ship of the line, which
was to carry 130 guns. all French 30 pounders. The
length of this vessel was to be 215 feet on deck, and her
breadth 504 feet ; she was to be called the Mahomed Ali
the Great, in contradistinction of another ship of the line
of 100 guns, built sometime before, and called the Ma-
horned Ali.

The bearer of one of the many placard boards
which are carried about the streets, being asked what he
received for his trouble, replied, " Two shillings a day and
my board," pointing to that on his shoulder.

The Hamburg steam vessel which plies be-
tween that place and Hull, was put under quarantine on
her arrival there on Monday last, but an order was sent on
Wednesday for her release. It appears that she had wool
on board, which is to be sent back.

TIIE MARVELLOUS.—A provincial Paper
very gravely states, that a hare having endeavoured to pass
across a road in the country, attr,icted the notice of a
donkey, who pursued and killed poor puss. Another Pa-
per, in correcting the statement, asserts, that the fact was
quite the contrary, and that it was the hare which pursued
and killed the donkey ! No doubt both statements are
equally true.

KOSCIUSKO.—it was here (at Peackawola
where he awaited the Russian and Prussian armies in their
advance against Warsaw) that one of his brothers in arms,
and who has recorded the events of this portion of his
glorious career, found him sleeping upon straw. The
picture he draws of this great man in his camp is an inte-
resting view of the hero who upheld the fate of Poland.
" We passed," says Count OGINSKI, " from Kosclusxo's
tent to a table prepared under some trees. The frugal re-
past which we made here, among about a dm zen guests, wiil
never be effaced from my memory. Time presence of this
great man, who his excited the admiration of all Europe,
who was the terror of his enemies, and the idol of his na-
tion ; who, raised to time rank of Dictator, had no ambi-
tion but to serve his country, and to fight for it ; who
always preserved an unassuming, affable, and mild demea-
nour ; who never wore any distieguishing mark of the
supreme authority with which he was invested ; who was
contented with a surtout of coarse grey cloth ; and whose
table was, as plainly furnished as that of a subaltern officer,
could not fail to awaken in me every sentiment of esteem,
admiration, and veneration, which I have sincerely felt for
him at every period of my life."—Fletcher's History of
Poland. How many noble spirits did not this gallant
and hapless nation give birth to, to aid her in her struggle
with the atrocious despots who sought to rend her asunder?
flow many has she not still to support her in her last
stiuggle ? And must such a nation—such men, be exter-
minated by hordes of barbarians at the nod of a sanguinary
Autocrat, in the nineteenth century, and before the eyes of
the civilized world?