Dosita was the next village reached, and here rain without and delirium within compelled him to remain one day. Recovering slightly, he set out for Mansia. The road led over a high rocky hill, and almost proved too much for the exhausted wayfarer, who had to lie down at intervals to recover. Though only a very few miles distant, it was late in the afternoon before he reached the town. Here he was given a little corn to eat, and a hut to sleep in. Evidently, however, the head man thought Park richer than he looked, and during the night made two attempts to enter the hut, being each time frustrated by the traveller’s vigilance. In the morning the latter thought it better to take French leave of such a host, and accordingly at daybreak set forth for Kamalia, a small town situated at the bottom of some rocky hills. This place he reached in the course of the afternoon.
At Kamalia, one Karfa Taura, brother of the hospitable negro trader of Kinyeto, extended a like welcome to the wayworn white man. By this time, so yellow was the latter’s skin from his repeated fevers, and so poverty-stricken his appearance, that the trader was only convinced of his nationality when on showing him a white man’s book in his possession, he found the traveller could read it. This was a Book of Common Prayer, of which Park obtained possession with no small surprise and delight.
Not too soon had some means of spiritual consolation come to him, for here he learned that the country before him—the Jallonka Wilderness, with its eight rapid rivers—was absolutely impassable for many months to come. Even then, when caravans found it difficult and dangerous, what would it be to a defenceless and destitute single man? With the knowledge that further advance at the present was hopeless, came the realisation of the fact that to utter exhaustion of outward resources was now to be added the complete loss of all inward force and strength. Exposure, hunger, toil, and fever had at last triumphed over Park’s iron constitution, and laid him low. He might still will not to die, still hope that he would yet reach the coast, still keep up his determined and sanguine spirit; but meanwhile, what could he do when his physical powers had thus failed him?
But even in that moment, when he found himself overshadowed by despair and death, and at the extreme limit of all his earthly resources, he was once again to prove that a “Protecting Providence” watched over him. In his supreme need a kind host had been provided in the person of Karfa Taura to save him from death by fever and starvation, and not only to lodge and feed him, but at the proper time to conduct him to the Gambia, whither he was going with a slave caravan.
“Thus was I delivered by the friendly care of this benevolent negro from a situation truly deplorable. Distress and famine pressed hard upon me. I had before me the gloomy wilds of Jallonkadu, where the traveller sees no habitation for five successive days. I had almost marked out the place where I was doomed, as I thought, to perish, when this friendly negro stretched out his hospitable hand to my relief.”
But neither food nor suitable shelter could stay the course of the fever. Each succeeding day saw Park weaker, each night more delirious, till at length he could not even crawl out of the hut. Six weary weeks he passed hovering between life and death—alone sustained by his intense religious beliefs and his eager hope of reaching the coast before he died. Little wonder surely that at times he spent “the lingering hours in a very gloomy and solitary manner,” while the rains dashed down remorselessly on the hut wherein he lay in the damp stifling atmosphere and semi-darkness.
At length with the passing season the rains became less frequent, and the ground in consequence more dry. With improved conditions came improved health and stronger hope of life. At times the convalescent managed to crawl to his door to sniff the fresher and more wholesome air, to bathe in the bright light, and look upon the blue heavens. It was as if he had emerged from an open grave.
Soon from the door of his hut he could totter with his mat to the grateful shade of a tamarind tree, and there enjoy the refreshing smell of the growing corn, and the varied prospect of hill and valley, field and grove around him. At other times naïve converse with the simple natives, and half hours with his book of prayers, made glad the passing day.
Through it all Karfa Taura was ever the generous host and faithful friend, though many there were who vainly tried to turn him against his unknown guest.
Occasionally parties of slaves were conveyed through Kamalia. Once one of the unfortunate captives asked Park for food. The latter represented that he was himself a stranger and destitute. “I gave you food when you were hungry,” was the reply; “have you forgot the man who brought you milk at Karankalla? But,” added he with a sigh, “the irons were not then on my legs.” Much touched, Park recalled the incident, and instantly begged some ground-nuts for him from Karfa.