Niger were lined with forest-trees, and the supply of coal was sufficient for a few days only, not a single axe or saw was provided for cutting wood, and the Kroomen hired from the coast were compelled to trim off with shingle-hatchets nearly all the fuel used in ascending the river,—­and in descending, the steamer was obliged to drift down with the current.  Moreover, she was but one hundred feet in length, with an engine and boiler occupying thirty feet of her bold,—­thus leaving but thirty-five feet at each end for officers, men, and stores.  Neither state-room, cabin, nor awning was provided on deck to shelter the crew from an African sun.

With all these deficiencies, however, they achieved a partial triumph.  Entering the river in July, they ascended the southern branch, now known as the Benue, for a distance of seven hundred miles from the sea, reaching Adamawa, a Mahometan state of the Soudan.  On the fifteenth of August they encountered the rise of waters, and found the Benue nearly a mile in width and from one to three fathoms in depth.  They observed it overflowing its banks for miles and irrigatin extensive and fertile plains to the depth of several feet, and saw reason to believe that this river, which flows westerly from the interior, may be navigated at least one thousand miles from the sea.  As Dr. Barth visited it at a city several hundred miles above the point reached by the Pleiad, and found it flowing with a wide and deep current, it may be regarded as the gateway into the interior of Africa.

One of our light Western steamers, manned by our Western boatmen and axemen, with its three decks, lofty staterooms, superior speed, and light draught, would have been most admirably fitted for this exploration.

But the expedition, with all its deficiencies, achieved a further triumph.  Dr. Bairkie, by using quinine freely, and by removing the beds of the officers from the stifling cabins to the deck, escaped the loss of a single man, although four months on the river,—­thus demonstrating that the white man can reach the interior of Africa in safety, a problem quite as important to be solved as the course and capacity of the Niger and its branches.

Thus have been opened to navigation the waters of the Mysterious River.

When the Landers first floated down the stream in their canoe, thirty years since, they found vast forests and little cultivation, and the natives seemed to have no commerce except in slaves and yams for their support.  But an officer who accompanied the several steam expeditions was astonished in his last visit to see the change which a few years had produced.  New and populous towns had sprung up, extensive groves of palm-trees and gardens lined the banks, and vessels laden with oil, yams, ground-nuts, and ivory indicated the progress of legitimate commerce.

The narrative of Dr. Bairkie, a distinguished German scholar, who has written an account of the voyage of the Pleiad, will be found both interesting and instructive; and we may some day expect another volume, for he has returned to the scene of his adventures.