LEILA A. PENDLETON
Mungo Park, a native of Scotland, was one of the first of noble, brave men who devoted the best years of their lives to Africa. In 1795, when he was only twenty-four years old, he went to West Africa to find the source of the River Niger. One of the drawbacks of the west coast is its deadly climate, and shortly after arriving at Kano young Park fell ill of fever and remained an invalid for five months. While recovering, he learned the language of the Mandingoes, a native tribe, and this was a great help to him.
He finally started with only six natives on his journey. Had he been older and wiser he would have taken a larger company. At one time they were captured by Moors and a wild boar was turned loose upon them, but instead of attacking Park the beast turned upon its owners, and this aroused their superstitious fears. The king then ordered him to be put into a hut where the boar was tied while he and his chief officers discussed whether Park should lose his right hand, his eyes or his life. But he escaped from them, and after nearly two years of wandering in search of the Niger's source, during which time he suffered many hardships and had many narrow escapes, he returned to Kano, the place where he had been ill.
At one time during his journey Mr. Park arrived in the neighborhood of Sego, and as a white man had never been seen in that region before, the natives looked upon him with fear and astonishment. He asked to see the king, but no one would take him across the river, and the king sent word that he would by no means receive the strange traveler until he knew what the latter wanted.
Park was tired, hungry, and discouraged and was preparing to spend the night in the branches of a tree when a native woman pitied him. She invited him into her hut, and with the hospitality for which the natives are noted, shared with him her food. By signs she made him understand that he might occupy the sleeping mat and as she and her daughter sat spinning they sang their native songs, among them the following, which was impromptu and composed in honor of the stranger:
The wind roared and the rain fell.
The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree.
He has no mother to bring him milk; no wife to grind his corn.
CHORUS
Let us pity the white man;
No mother has he to bring him milk;
No wife to grind his corn.
Speaking of this incident, Park says: "Trifling as this recital may appear to the reader, to a person in my situation the circumstance was affecting in the highest degree. I was oppressed by such unexpected kindness and sleep fled from my eyes." And another writer says: "The name of the woman and the alabaster box of precious ointment, the nameless widow, who, giving only two mites, had given more than all the rich, and this nameless woman of Sego, form a trio of feminine beauty and grandeur of which the sex in all ages may be proud."