When he thus made up his mind to return to the coast, Park had followed the Niger a distance of over eighty miles from Sego, finding that it still maintained its easterly course. In addition, he gathered from various traders the fact that it continued in the same direction for four days’ journey more, when it expanded into a lake of considerable size, named Dibbie, or “The Dark Lake.”
From Dibbie (Debo) the Niger was said to divide into two branches, enclosing a large tract of land called Jinbala, and uniting again after a north-easterly course near Kabra, the “port” of Timbuktu. From Jenné to the latter place the distance by land was twelve days’ journey.
From Kabra, Park does not seem certain—at least he does not make it clear—what course the Niger took, though he correctly enough states that at the distance of eleven days’ journey it passes to the south of Haussa (probably what is now known as Birni-n-Kebbi, a large town in Gandu, one of the Haussa States). Beyond this nothing further was known. It seems evident, however, that Park confounded the course of the Niger with that of its great eastern tributary the Benué, as had most of the geographers before him; and so was led astray from seeking for its natural termination in the Atlantic.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
THE RETURN THROUGH BAMBARRA.
Park’s resolution to return to the coast was taken on the 29th July 1796. His hope of accomplishing this purpose in safety seemed almost as desperate as the task of going forward. Before him lay a journey on foot of eleven hundred miles in a straight line, to which must be added an additional five hundred for deviations and the windings of the road. He had thus before him nineteen hundred miles on foot through a barbarous country, where the stranger was considered fair prey, and the laws afforded him no protection from violence. He was without the wherewithal to buy food, and had only rags to shield him from the violence of the weather and the maddening onslaughts of mosquitoes. In addition he had to face all the horrors of the tropic winter, tornadoes of wind, rain, and thunder overhead, swamps and mire under foot, and flooded streams barring the way at every turn. The hardships were sufficient to have killed any man of less indomitable spirit and weaker frame. Even Park would probably have succumbed, but that he could not die while his discoveries remained uncommunicated to his employers and the public. Till then his work was only half done. With his death it would be wholly undone—all his toil and suffering in vain. To reach the coast was therefore now a point of as much importance as formerly it had been to see the Niger.
His mind once made up, Park acted with promptitude and resolution.
He arrived at Silla on the 29th July. The night sufficed to determine his course, and morning saw the commencement of his return journey. It behoved him indeed to waste no time. A few days more and the country would be impassable by land on account of the flooded rivers. Already it was so on the southern side of the Niger—a fact Park much regretted, as he had hoped to return by that way.
Crossing to Murzan by one canoe, he was there enabled to hire another to Kea. Here he was permitted to sleep in the hut of one of the head man’s slaves, who, seeing him sick and destitute of clothes, compassionately covered him with a large cloth.