ff, in King Boy's canoe, to go
sixty miles down the river to the brig.

His feelings of delight may be imagined when he had ocular evidence that
he had at length succeeded in tracing the mysterious Niger down to the
ocean, by seeing before him two vessels, one the Spanish slaver, the
other the English brig on board which he fully expected to receive the
assistance he so greatly required.

To his utter surprise and consternation, on going on board, Captain
Lake, though almost himself at death's door from fever, flatly refused
to give him a single thing. By his language and behaviour he showed
himself to be a greater savage than the ignorant blacks among whom
Lander had been travelling. Lander in vain expostulated with the
captain; fearful oaths and flat refusals were the only answers he made.
At last, when Lander suggested that he had five men, who might be useful
in working his vessel out of the river, he softened a little, and gave
him a change of linen and some provisions for his brother.

King Boy was ultimately induced to go back to bring John Lander and the
rest of the men, on Richard's reiterated promise that he would at some
time or other obtain the goods they had promised him. He presented him
also with some silver bracelets, which they had before overlooked, and a
native sword. These articles Boy accepted, but when John Lander offered
him his watch it was refused with disdain, the savage not knowing its
value.

The captain of the brig had in the meantime loaded his guns and got his
arms ready, and when Boy came up to him once more, to demand the bars
which had been promised, he replied, in a voice of thunder: "I no will!"

As the pilot, to whom the captain had also refused to pay his demand,
could not be trusted to take the brig out, she narrowly escaped
shipwreck on the bar, but happily at length getting clear of the river,
she steered a course for Fernando Po, where the travellers landed.
Hence they sailed for Rio de Janeiro, which they reached on the 16th of
March, and from that port obtained a passage on board the "William
Harris" to England, which they reached safely on the 10th of June.

Thus, with very humble means, by the energy and courage of two
unpretending men, was the long-disputed problem of the course of the
Niger at length completely solved.

Besides the payment which the Government had promised to Richard Lander,
he received a premium of fifty guineas, placed at the disposal of the