Besides my own private concerns, and the anxiety produced by the urgency of my debts and the uncertainty with regard to the property left by me in Zínder, there were two objects which attracted my whole attention and caused me a good deal of perplexity and hesitation. The first of these was the expedition sent by the English government up the river Bénuwé, of which I had not the slightest idea at the time when it was carried out, for the despatches which I had received in Timbúktu, after so much delay, did not contain a word about such a proceeding; and the letters which were forwarded afterwards to my address, informing me that such an expedition was to be undertaken, remained in Kúkawa, and I did not get them until my arrival in that place at the end of December. Thus it was not until the 29th October that, just in the same manner as I had heard accidentally in Sókoto of the arrival of Mr. Vogel in Kúkawa, I was informed here, by the report of the natives, of such an expedition having taken place. I at first thought that it was undertaken by Captain M‘Leod, of whose proposal to ascend the Niger I had accidentally gleaned some information through a number of the Galignani, and it was not until the 13th November that I succeeded in meeting the person who had seen the expedition with his own eyes. This man informed me that the expedition consisted of one large boat, he did not know whether of iron or of wood, and two smaller ones, containing altogether seven gentlemen and seventy slaves, he of course taking the Kroomen for slaves. Moreover, I learned from him that the members of this expedition had not gone as far as Yóla, the capital of Ádamáwa, as the governor of Hamárruwa had warned them not to go up to that place with their steamer, on account of the narrow passage between the mountains. He also informed me, that they had commenced their home journey earlier than had been expected, and that he himself, having proceeded to Yákoba in order to procure more ivory for them, had found them gone on his return. The other circumstance which greatly occupied my mind at this time, was the state of affairs in Kúkawa. For in the beginning, on the first news of the revolution in Bórnu, and of the Sheikh ʿOmár being dethroned and his vizier slain, I had given up my project of returning by Bórnu, intending to try again the difficult road by Áír. At a later season, however, when I heard on the road that ʿOmár was again installed, I cherished the hope that it might be possible to take the safer route by the Tebu country, especially as I received the news of a most sanguinary struggle having taken place between the Kél-owí and the Kél-gerés. In this struggle a great many of the noblest men of the former were said to have fallen, together with several hundred of the common people on both sides. I was sorry to hear that in this struggle my best friends had succumbed.