This settlement is not large; the houses are good, and well constructed for a warm climate. Behind the main town are a considerable number of conical huts, very close to each other. Upon the whole, Bathurst seems well adapted for trade, and capable of being greatly improved. As far as I could judge, it is in a thriving condition. It is much visited by Mandingos for the purpose of trade. These are a peculiar race, easily distinguished from any other, being tall and thin, very active, and very black. Their skin is apparently not so moist as that of some other African tribes; but their head is very singularly formed, tapering from the forehead upwards, to a narrow ridge along the crown. As this was the sowing season, fruits were not plentiful. Some bananas, cocoa-nuts, ground nuts, and other small fruits, were all that could be obtained. We here received intelligence of the massacre of part of the crew of the _Courier_, William Vaughan, (which left London 29th April, 1844,) on the island of Arguin. On the 19th of May, it appeared, they got sight of land a little north of Cape Blanco, and on the 20th rounded the point or cape, and entered the bay of Arguin, when suddenly the ship got into two fathoms water. Upon this the master instantly ordered the helm hard a-port, but before the ship could be got round she struck at three P.M. at high-water and spring-tide. Fifty tons of ballast were now thrown overboard, and at two on the following day, she being got off, the chief mate was sent to sound a-head, but was often obliged to anchor, owing to the incorrectness of the charts. He anchored with the long-boat under the island during the night, owing to the heavy sea running; but as he was rounding the point to return to the ship, he saw two natives and a white man coming towards the long-boat. The white man hailed the boat in English. They again rounded the point to take in their countryman, upon which the two natives beat him unmercifully with bludgeons. One of the Englishmen then ran back to the boat and procured a musket, which he presented at the two natives, on which they immediately ran off. Upon reaching the poor Englishman, the mate and men belonging to the _Courier_ ascertained that the barque _Margaret_, of London, had been plundered at the same place in the month of May previous, that almost all hands had either been murdered or taken prisoners, and that, besides himself, four more men belonging to the _Margaret_ were still alive upon the island undergoing every hardship.