Mungo Park and the Niger

by Joseph Thomson

On the other hand, Park, imbued as he likewise was with the romantic instinct, could not fail to be attracted by Scott’s peculiar genius. Moreover, both were Scotchmen, both Borderers, and both alike were passionate lovers of the minstrelsy, tales, traditions, and ballads of their native country. The ballads especially were dear to Park, and he tells how, in his last expedition, one of his followers used “to beguile the watches of the night with the songs of our dear native land.”

But whatever were the links which drew these two famous men together, they were sufficient speedily to develop a very warm and cordial friendship, and visits were frequently interchanged across the heathery hills which separated them. On one of these occasions Scott discovered Park sitting alone beside the noisy Yarrow, employed in the apparently idle and boyish amusement of throwing stones into the river and anxiously watching the bubbles as they rose to the surface. On being asked what interest he found in such a pastime, Park replied that he was thus in the habit of ascertaining the depth of rivers in Africa before venturing to cross them—the time taken by the bubbles to rise being an indication of the depth.

Early in September came the long expected summons to repair to London, and Park lost no time in settling his affairs preparatory to leaving home. Among others, he paid a farewell visit to Sir Walter Scott at Ashesteil, where he spent the night. Next morning his host accompanied him on his way to Foulshiels. The path lay up the Glenkinnen to Williamhope, whence it continued over the ridge and passed between the Brown Knowe and the humpy elevation of the Broomy Law. As they passed from the birchen slopes of Glenkinnen into the heather and grass-clad zones above, Park talked much of his plans of exploration, and the results that would accrue to science and commerce should he prove successful.

Under other conditions the panorama which slowly unfolds itself with the ascent of the hill would have been sufficient to draw even Park’s thoughts from Africa and the Niger. The various glens and valleys of the Tweed, the Gala, the Yarrow, and the Ettrick divide the land into a picturesque succession of winding ridges, isolated hills, and rounded mountain tops, where wood, heather, and grass give variety of colour to the higher levels, while below waving crops and busy harvest-fields, ruined castle and noble mansion, humble cottage and straggling village, with glancing bits of stream and river, flocks of sheep and scattered herds of cattle, combine to produce the softer effects of “cultivated nature.”

But on this day of leave-taking a leaden-coloured mist hung over hill and valley, hiding their every feature. Only now and again did the breeze lift a corner of the enshrouding veil and give a momentary glimpse, vague and fleeting, of glen and hill-top. As they talked of the coming journey Scott seemed to see in the vaguely defined landscape an emblem of his friend’s prospects, where all was problematic, uncertain—the path beset with unknown dangers and pitfalls, nothing sure save the presence of surrounding perils which might neither be foreseen nor prepared for. In this ignorance as regards the exact nature of the dangers to be faced lies one of the chief difficulties and terrors of travel in unexplored savage lands. All the traveller does know is that dangers in various forms will most assuredly confront him, and he must depend upon his presence of mind and readiness of resource at the moment to avoid or repel them.

But Park was not to be debarred from his enterprise by any thought of the difficulties in the way. To all that Scott could urge he had his answer. The idea of solving the question of the Niger’s termination was one which possessed him to the exclusion of all thoughts of self. As well have asked him to renounce his belief in the existence of God as expect him to give up his cherished scheme.

At last the glen of the Yarrow lay before them. At the bottom could be hazily defined the “birchen bower,” from which the stately tower of Newark and the humble cottage of Foulshiels alike looked forth on the beautiful murmurous stream.

Here they must say good-bye. A ditch divided the road from the moor, and in crossing it Park’s horse stumbled and nearly fell. “I am afraid, Mungo,” said Scott, “that is a bad omen.” “Freits” (i.e., omens) “follow those who look to them,” was the prompt reply; and without another word Park rode away and disappeared in the mist.

It now only remained to Park to take farewell of his wife. Brave as he was, the ordeal was more than he dared face. Not that she had raised any objections to his going, or put any barriers in the way. Seeing how much her husband’s heart was in it, and not perhaps without some natural womanly pride in being the wife of a hero rather than of a nobody, she seems to have accepted as a matter of course his determination to avail himself of the chance of further distinction presented by the proposed expedition. Still, the moment of actual parting, with the prospect of at best a long period of separation, would be agony. Even better than his wife Park knew how many chances there were that the separation might be final—that wife and children, of whom there were now three, might never see him again. Sanguine as he was of success, there were moments when he could not but admit that the coming enterprise looked very like a forlorn hope—moments, too, when it became difficult for him to discern whether his duty to humanity or to his family had the stronger claim upon him.

It was under the influence of some such feeling of despondency that he finally resolved to spare both himself and his wife the anguish of a parting scene, and betaking himself to Edinburgh on the plea of business, thence wrote to her his last farewell.