In vain, too, did they look for traces of the great kingdoms described by the early Portuguese explorers, or of the churches and cities founded by the Europeans in the early days of Portuguese national and Christian enterprise. For the most part they were met only by the dark depths of malarious mangrove swamps, and the profound stillness and impenetrable vegetation of the tropical forest, though here and there in the clearings were miserable villages, inhabited by idle, good-humoured natives, with a decided appetite for ardent spirits--seemingly the only legacy permanently left behind by the Europeans. Pushing up the river, they at length reached the first cataracts of the Congo, which, instead of proving to be another Niagara, seemed to their jaundiced eyes “a comparative brook bubbling over its stony bed”--a description, needless to say, not confirmed by subsequent expeditions. Unable to proceed further in their boats, Tuckey and his companions continued the exploration by land, and in spite of the extreme difficulties they had to encounter in cutting their way through pathless forests without a guide, they surmounted the first stretch of falls, and reached a point where the river widened and presented no difficulties to navigation. Unhappily, however, the old story of disease commenced. Three of the principal men had successively to return to the ship; and finally Tuckey and his companion Smith, the botanist, abandoned their projects, seeing their further progress hopeless in face of so many difficulties and their own helpless condition under the paralysing influence of disease. They reached the ship to find their three companions dead. Smith was the next victim. Finally, overcome by depression and mental anxiety, Captain Tuckey died also. How many sailors succumbed we are not told. Meanwhile no better luck fell to the lot of the other section of the expedition. On the 14th December, this party, consisting of 100 men and 200 animals, under the command of Major Peddie, landed at the mouth of the Rio Nunez, nearly midway between the Gambia and Sierra Leone. Major Peddie’s intention was to pass across the narrow part between the Ocean and the Niger. Hardly had he landed, however, before the fell demon of disease, which in its foul lair keeps watch and ward over the fair expanse of Inner Africa, laid its invisible hand upon him, and ere the march was begun he found a grave in the land he had come to explore. Under Captain Campbell the expedition experienced only a succession of disasters. The donkeys rapidly perished under the hands of men unaccustomed to look after them. Food was only to be obtained with the utmost difficulty, and at ruinous prices. Arrived near the frontiers of the Fulah country, they were detained for four months owing to the suspicions entertained towards them by the king and his people.