The generosity of his reception was all the more admirable that at the time the people were suffering from semi-famine. Under these circumstances, after having waited two days in vain for the return of his horse and clothes, Park, afraid of becoming a burden to his kind host, asked permission to proceed to the next village. The head man showed no anxiety to hasten his guest’s departure, but in the end told him to go to Wonda, and remain there till news was received of his missing possessions.
Accordingly on the 30th, he proceeded to the place indicated, a small town with a mosque, where his reception by the Mansa or chief was as hospitable as at Sibidulu.
The attacks of fever which had finally compelled Park to turn back at Silla now began to return with greater violence and frequency, and little wonder either that it should be so. His solitary shirt, worn to the thinness of muslin, afforded him neither protection from the sun by day nor from the dews and mosquitoes by night. As, also, it had become unpleasantly dirty, at Wonda he set about washing it, and had to sit naked in the shade till it dried. The result was a violent attack of fever which prostrated him for nine days.
All the while he had to do his best to conceal his illness, lest his host should find him too great a nuisance, and order him to move on. To this end he tried, like sick or wounded animals, to hide himself away out of sight, usually spending the whole day lying in the corn-field, thus undoubtedly aggravating his malady.
At this time the scarcity of food was so great that women brought their children to the head man to sell for forty days’ provisions for themselves and the rest of their families.
At last messengers arrived from Sibidulu, bringing Park’s horse and clothes. To his profound dismay and disappointment the compass—which next to his notes was his most valuable possession—was broken and useless. The loss was irreparable.
The horse proving to be a mere skeleton, he was handed over as a present to his kind landlord.
Though still ill with fever, and hardly able to totter along, the traveller now resumed his weary way.
On the two succeeding days starvation added to his weakness. On the third a negro trader gave him some food, and afterwards conducted him to his house at Kinyeto. Here, as if he had not yet sufficiently run the gamut of human suffering, he must needs endure the agonies of a sprained ankle, which swelled and inflamed so that he could not set his foot to the ground. The kindly trader, however, made him welcome to stay until quite recovered, but Park did not trespass on his hospitality longer than was absolutely necessary.
In three days he was sufficiently well to be able to limp along with the assistance of a staff, and in this fashion he contrived to hobble to Jerijang, whose chief—there being no king in Manding—was considered the most powerful in the country.