The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-12-24 00:00:00

THE NIGER EXPEDITION

Mr. Macgregor Laird, who is intimately acquainted with
the river Niger, having prominently shared in the mercantile
expedition to explore it and open a trade with the interior,
has, in a letter dated on the 15th instant, and published in
the Spectator of Saturday last, given his reasons for thinking,
in spite of the painful intelligence recently received, that
there is little, if any, occasion for despondency as to the
fate of the brave and enterprising men on board the Albert
and the Wilberforce. We quote his reasons at length :
" The Niger expedition entered the Nun branch of the
river on the 12th August, with forty-three officers and one
hundred and eleven men, exclusive of some gentlemen sent
out by the Civilization Society. They passed through the
swampy country in perfect health ; and on the 3d September,
being then at Iddah, where the country is high, rocky, and
pretty well cultivated, were struck by the fatal remittent
fever, twenty-two days after entering the river. Of the whole
number, one-third were attacked : of these, two officers and
twenty men, by the last accounts, had died in the river on
the voyage to Ascension and in the hospital there; giving a
ratio of nearly five per cent. on the officers and twenty per
cent. on the men.
" This mortality is much less than any one could have
reasonably expected, and far below that of any former expe-
dition into the interior ; but it seems to be looked upon
merely as the precursor of more extended calamities. I think,
on the contrary, that they have passed their most severe
trial, and that the future risk to be apprehended is only that
common to all tropical rivers.
" My reason for being of this opinion is, the striking simi-
larity up to a certain point (the attack of fever) between this
ascent of the Niger and that in which I bore a part, and the
remarkable difference from that point.
" I entered the river on the 19th October, 1822. On the
Ilth November, twenty-three days afterwards, the vessel I
commanded, being then clear of the swamps, was struck by
fever ; and in forty-eight hours afterwards all the Europeans,
twenty-three iu number, were attacked. On the 24th, thir-
teen had died, and three more died on the 4th December,
making sixteen out of the twenty-three. The only other
fatal case in the river was one of dysentery, three months
afterwards.

I think the fair and legitimate inference to be drawn
from a comparison of these two cases is, that the seeds of the
fever in both were imbibed in the swamps by all predis-
posed to take them ; that they remained dormant for a cer-
tai❑ number of days, and then broke out simultaneously ;
that, either owing to the season of the year being more fa-
vourable, to the precautions adopted, or to both, the num-
ber of men who were predisposed to the fever was much
fewer in the one case than the other; that the fever itself was
much less malignant, as the ratio of mortality shows, and
that those who escaped are not likely to be attacked without
returning to the swampy country and being again exposed to
the malaria, which, as they have passed through it once un-
scathed, there is the more hope they may do again.
" Without, therefore, wishing to create the impression
that the crews of the Albert and Wilberforce are perfectly
safe, I think there exists less cause for alarm now than
formerly. They have passed through their greatest danger
with much less loss than any reasonable man anticipated : for
it surely was never expected that they alone should be al-
lowed to pass untouched through that ordeal under which so
many brave men had fallen. If it was so, I can only say the
absurdity of such belief is only to be equalled by its impiety."

A VortAcious PIKE.—A singular instance of the voracity
of the pike occurred on the subsiding of the flood from
the footpath adjoining a Mr. Oldham's mill, a few days
since. Some lads were engaged in play, and dabbling with
their naked felt in the waters overflowing the banks of the
Learn, when one of the juvenile party was seized by the foot
by a pike of about four pounds weight ; and such was the te-
nacity with which this tyrant of the watery element kept its
hold that it was with no little difficulty that the boy suc-
ceeded in shaking it off, which having at length accom-
plished, he carried it to the domicile of his parents, where it
formed part of the family meal a few hours afterwards.—
Manchester paper.