On the 17th November, dating from “On board of H.M. schooner Joliba, at anchor off Sansandig,” Park wrote to Lord Camden. After some remarks on his situation, he continues—
“From this account I am afraid that your Lordship will be apt to consider matters as in a very hopeless state, but I assure you I am far from desponding. With the assistance of one of the soldiers I have changed a large canoe into a tolerably good schooner, on board of which I shall set sail to the east, with the fixed resolution to discover the termination of the Niger or perish in the attempt. I have heard nothing I can depend on respecting the remote course of this mighty stream, but I am more and more inclined to think that it can end nowhere but in the sea.
“My dear friend Mr. Anderson, and likewise Mr. Scott, are both dead; but though all the Europeans who are with me should die, and though I were myself half dead, I would still persevere, and if I could not succeed in the object of my journey, I would at least die on the Niger. If I succeed in the object of my journey, I expect to be in England in the month of May or June, by way of the West Indies.”
On the 19th he wrote to his wife—
“ ... I am afraid that, impressed with a woman’s fears and the anxieties of a wife, you may be led to consider my situation as a great deal worse than it is.... The rains are completely over, and the healthy season has commenced, so that there is no danger of sickness, and I have still a sufficient force to protect me from any insult in sailing down the river to the sea.
“We have already embarked all our things, and shall sail the moment I have finished this letter. I do not intend to stop nor land anywhere till we reach the coast, which I suppose will be some time in the end of January.... I think it not unlikely but that I shall be in England before you receive this.... We this morning have done with all intercourse with the natives. The sails are now being hoisted for our departure to the coast.”
These letters are full of brave words, yet they do not express one iota more than what Park was capable of. They breathe his remarkable personality in every line. They show the heroic spirit that does not know the word impossible, that does not know when it is beaten—that having once set itself a task, is incapable of turning back. They speak eloquently of a stubborn resolution which only death itself can render powerless, and such a resolution as the world has rarely seen.
It is almost impossible to realise the position of our hero at the moment when he prepared to embark on one of the most perilous and uncertain voyages history records. In some aspects it deserves to rank with the voyage of Columbus across the Atlantic. The bourne was equally uncertain, the distance not so very much less, the perils quite as great. It might even be said that compared with that of Park, the enterprise of Columbus was most hopeful. Columbus, too, had always the option of turning back. For Park there was no such door of escape. Success or death was his only choice, and even success might mean captivity or worse, the best geographer of the time holding that the Niger termination was not in the ocean, but in the heart of the continent. If he proved right, how many were the chances against Park’s ever finding his way out again.
It is to be remembered, in addition, that this voyage of from 2000 to 3000 miles—supposing the Niger to be the same as the Congo—was not embarked upon in the heyday of the party’s hopes, but after an unparalleled series of misfortunes and a frightful tale of death.
For sole means of carrying out this wonderful enterprise Park had nothing better than an unwieldy half-rotten canoe, and a crew consisting of an officer wholly unsuited to the work, three European privates, of whom one was mad and the others sick, and lastly, Amadi Fatuma, the guide, and three slaves—nine men in all.