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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.
They met with no obstruction from the natives, till they came to Eboe, where an unfortunate quarrel took place, which seems to have arisen from a mere misunderstanding. The discharge of a gun had been agreed upon as the signal from the Alburkah for the Quorra to anchor; which being fired after dark, before the village, alarmed the natives, who opened a brisk discharge of musketry from the banks.
The disproportion of mortality in the two vessels, at this period, is ascribed to the superior coolness of the Alburkah, which was rendered more healthy in consequence of her iron hull diffusing through her interior the coolness of the surrounding water. They next anchored off Attah, a picturesque town, situated on the top of a hill which rises nearly 300 feet above the river.
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 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.
In the course of the same evening they were surrounded by canoes, which brought goats, yams, plantains, and bananas for sale. The effect of the climate and of their stay near the swamps now became fatally manifest. In the Quorra, fourteen men died, and three in the Alburkah.
That human industry will one day level these forests, drain these swamps, and cover this soil with luxuriant harvests, we may confidently anticipate; but many ages must probably elapse before man, in Africa, can achieve such a victory over nature." Edinburgh Review, vol. 55. The Steam Voyage of the Quorra and Alburkah.
Some Liverpool merchants being desirous of opening a trade with the countries on the banks of the Niger, by the exchange of British manufactures for native produce, fitted out two steam boats: one of which, the Quorra, was of 150 tons, and of the ordinary construction; while the other, the Alburkah, was only of 57 tons.
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