The commercial writer in the Times announces, that "though the
fact has not yet come prominently into public notice, another expedition to the river Niger has been organized, and is by this time far on the way to its destination "—
" The subscriptions for it have been raised chiefly in London and in Liverpool; and at the head of the former list is the name of the late Sir T. F. Buxton for -5001. The command of the expedition is intrusted to Captain John Becroft, who was second in command under Colonel Nicholl at Fernando Po; and this will be his fourth ascent of that river, so that he may be said to be perfectly seasoned to the climate. He is accompanied by Dr. King, and the same engineer who went with him in his former voyages; and, to guard further against the fatality which visited the previous expedition, the rest of the crew is composed of Africans. Among the assistants to the engineers is an African youth, nineteen years of age, who has had the advantage of ten years' education here, the scientific part of which was obtained in the engineering department of Woolwich dockyard; and -who worked the Wilberforce up the Niger in the last trip she made, also down that river, and to Fernando Po, and back to England. Several of the crew are ex- pert seamen and boatmen; others are good tradesmen- and all able to read and write--also professing the Christian religion. The tradesmen are to be left, with certain proportions of merchandise, at the most populous and convenient stations on the river Niger and its tributaries, to collect a cargo for the Ethiope, the vessel fitted out for the exploration of the river; where she arrived, according to accounts received, on the 22d November last from Liverpool; and is to remain until the proper time for ascending the Niger in July next, or be employed meantime in surveying the entrances of several rivers on the coast, from the Old Calabar to the Congo."
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