The information obtained at Bocqua was most satisfactory; the sea was only ten days' journey off. There was no danger in going down the river, the chief said, though the people on the banks were a bad lot. Following the advice of this chief, the travellers passed the fine town of Atta without stopping, and halted at Abbagaca, where the river divides into several branches, and whose chief showed insatiable greed. Refusing to halt at several villages, whose inhabitants begged for a sight of the white strangers, they were finally obliged to land at the village of Damuggo, where a little man wearing a waistcoat which had once formed part of a uniform, hailed them in English, crying out: "Halloa, ho! you English, come here!" He was an emissary from the King of Bonny come to buy slaves for the master. The chief of Damuggo, who had never before seen white men, received the explorers very kindly, held public rejoicings in their honour and detained them with constant fetes until the 4th November. Although the fetich consulted by him presaged that they would meet with a thousand dangers before reaching the sea, this monarch supplied them with an extra canoe, some rowers, and a guide. [Illustration: Map of the Lower Course of the Djoliba, Kouara, Quoora, or Niger (after Lander). Grave par E. Morieu.] The sinister predictions of the fetich were soon fulfilled. John and Richard Lander were embarked in different boats. As they passed a large town called Kirree they were stopped by war-canoes, each containing forty men wearing European clothes, minus the trousers. Each canoe carried what at first sight appeared to be the Union Jack flying from a long bamboo cane fixed in the stern, a four or six pounder was lashed to each prow, and every black sailor was provided with a musket. The two brothers were taken to Kirree, where a palaver was held upon their fate. Fortunately the Mallams or Mohammedan priests interfered in their favour, and some of their property was restored to them, but the best part had gone to the bottom of the river with John Lander's canoe.