Another of the slatees turned out to be an African Enoch Arden. For eight long years he had stayed away from his wife, during which time she heard nothing from him. Concluding after three years that he was either dead or not likely to return, she seemingly without reluctance gave her heart and hand to another, by whom she had two children. The first husband now claimed her as his. The other objected on the ground that a three years’ absence annulled a marriage. For four days a public palaver was held to settle this knotty point, ending in the decision that the husbands had equal rights, and that the wife had best settle the matter by making her own choice. The lady asked time to consider, but Park could perceive that not love but wealth would gain the day.
On the 20th of May the caravan entered the Tenda Wilderness, where for two days they traversed dense woods. With what pleasure must Park have noticed that the country shelved towards the south-west—that in fact he had entered the basin of the Gambia. At sunset of the first day a pool was reached after a very hot and trying march. To avoid the burning heats of the day a night march was determined on. At eleven o’clock the slaves were released from their irons and driven forward in close order, as much to prevent them escaping as to save them from wild beasts. In this fashion they travelled till daybreak, after a rest continuing the march to Tambakunda, the place almost reached by Jobson nearly 170 years before, and which he believed to be Timbuktu itself.
From Tambakunda the road led over a wild and rocky country, everywhere rising into hills, and abounding with monkeys and wild beasts. During the next two marches the reception everywhere met with by the caravan was far from being hospitable, and they were even in some danger of being plundered.
On the 30th of May the Nerico, a branch of the Gambia, was reached. As soon as it was crossed the singing men began to chant a song expressive of their delight at having got safe into the “land of the setting sun.” Next day, to his infinite joy, Park found himself on the banks of the Gambia, at a point where it was navigable, though lower down there were shallows.
Three days later, Medina, the capital of Wulli, was reached, where Park had been so hospitably received seventeen months before. The caravan did not halt here; but Park, mindful of the old king’s prayer on his behalf, sent word to him that his prayers had not been unavailing.
Next day Jindeh was reached, where the parting with Dr. Laidley had taken place. Here Karfa left his slaves till a better opportunity of selling them had arrived; but determined not to leave his white friend till the last, he accompanied him on his way to Pisania.
Park at this point remarks: “Although I was now approaching the end of my tedious and toilsome journey, and expected in another day to meet with countrymen and friends, I could not part for the last time with my unfortunate fellow-travellers, doomed as I knew most of them to be to a life of captivity and slavery in a foreign land, without great emotion.... We parted with reciprocal expressions of regret and benediction. My good wishes and prayers were all that I could bestow upon them, and it afforded me some consolation to be told that they were sensible I had no more to give.”
On the 10th, Park once more shook hands with one of his countrymen. He found that it was universally believed that he had met the same fate as Major Houghton in Ludamar. He also learned with sincere sorrow that neither Johnson, who had deserted him, nor Demba, who had been enslaved by the Moors, had returned.
On the 12th, Dr. Laidley joined the long-lost traveller, and greeted him as one risen from the dead. Park was soon, under his hospitable hands, divested of his ragged Moorish garments. With them went the luxuriant beard which had been the delight and admiration of natives and Moors alike, among whom nothing is more envied, and he stood forth once more the handsome young Scotchman his portrait shows him to be.