Niger Expedition Began At Destination

In 1804, London's African Association sent a man named Henry Nicholls from a British trading post in the Gulf of Guinea to search inland for the Niger River. After expeditions from Tripoli, Cairo, and the Gambia failed, the organization hoped a southern approach would succeed. However, Europeans did not know that the river mouth beside the post was the Niger's own outlet, so the expedition had unknowingly begun at its destination. Nicholls died by 1805, probably from malaria, before he could solve the mystery.

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