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Journal of an Expedition up the Niger

Up the Niger and Tshadda Rivers, 1854

Samuel Ajayi Crowther · 1809–1891

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About this book

In 1854 Samuel Crowther — a Yoruba boy once carried down this same coast in a slave ship, now an ordained missionary — steamed up the Niger and Tshadda rivers aboard the <em>Pleiad</em>, on the first such expedition to come home without losing a man to fever. This is his own day-by-day journal of the voyage: the towns and chiefs he met, the trade and the slavery he witnessed, the Scriptures he read to kings, and his longing to see the gospel and the freed people of Sierra Leone return to the interior of Africa.

June 17: The ‘Bacchante’ arrived this morning from Fernando Po, and brought the painful intelligence of Mr. Beecroft's death, which took place the night before she sailed. I felt this very much as the Expedition was just expected, and I knew no other person connected with it besides him ; this caused a little anxiety, but I resigned everything to God’s good and unerring providence.
From Departure from Abbeokuta
  1. 1 Departure from Abbeokuta 57 min
  2. 2 Entrance of the Tshadda 58 min
  3. 3 Interview with the Chief of Zhibu 60 min
  4. 4 Return of the Expedition 48 min
  5. 5 Sickness at the Confluence 51 min

Public domain. Source text from the original edition.