Meantime, Amadi Fatouma reached the king's residence, at some distance from the river. The prince, warned of the presence of the white men, sent an army next day to the small village of Boussa, on the river side. When the Djoliba appeared it was assailed by a shower of stones and arrows. Park threw his baggage into the river, and jumped in with his companions. All perished.
Thus miserably died the first Englishman who had navigated the Djoliba and visited Timbuctoo. Many efforts were made in the same direction, but almost all were destined to fail.
At the end of the eighteenth century, two of Linnæus's best pupils explored the south of Africa in the interests of natural history. Sparrman undertook to search for animals, and Thunberg for plants. The account of Sparrman's expedition, which, as we have said, was interrupted by his voyage in Oceania, after Cook's expedition, was the first to appear. It was translated into French by Le Tourneur. In his preface, which is still allowed to stand, Le Tourneur deplored the loss of the learned explorer, who he said had died during a voyage to the Gold Coast. Just as the work was published, Sparrman reappeared, to the great astonishment of Le Tourneur.
Sparrman had reached Africa upon the 30th of April, 1772, and landed at the Cape of Good Hope. At this time the town was only two miles across each way, including the gardens and plantations adjoining it on one side. The streets were wide, planted with oaks, and the houses were white, or, to Sparrman's surprise, painted green.
His object in visiting the Cape was to act as tutor to the children of a M. Kerste; but upon his arrival in Cape Town, he found that his employer was absent at his winter residence in False Bay. When the spring came round, Sparrman accompanied Kerste to Alphen, a property which he possessed near Constance. The naturalist availed himself of the opportunity to make many excursions in the neighbourhood, and attempt the somewhat dangerous ascent of the Table Mountain. By these means he became acquainted with the manners and customs of the Boers, and their treatment of their slaves. The violence of the latter was so great that the inhabitants of the town were obliged to sleep with locked doors, and provided with fire-arms close at hand.
Nearly all over the colony a rough hospitality ensured a certain welcome for the traveller. Sparrman relates several curious experiences of his own.
"I arrived one evening," he says, "at the dwelling of a farmer named Van der Spooei, a widower, born in Africa, and father of the proprietor of the Red Constance, or the Old Constance.
"Making believe not to see me approach, he remained stationary in the entry of his house. As I approached him, he offered his hand, still without attempting to come forward, and said, 'Good day! You are welcome! How are you? Who are you? A glass of wine perhaps? or a pipe? Will you partake of something?' I answered his questions laconically, and accepted his offers in the same style as they were offered. His daughter, a well-made girl of some fourteen or fifteen years of age, brought in dinner, which consisted of a fine breast of lamb, stewed with carrots. The meal over, she offered me tea so pleasantly that I was quite puzzled whether to admire the dinner or my charming hostess the most. Both father and daughter showed the greatest kindness and good will. I spoke to my host several times, in hopes of breaking his silence; but his replies were brief; and I observed that he only once commenced a conversation himself, when he pressed me to remain over night in his house. I bid him farewell, deeply impressed with his hospitality."
Sparrman undertook several similar expeditions, among others, one to Hout Bay and Paarl, in which he had frequent occasion to notice the exaggerations to be met with in the narrative of Kolbe, his predecessor.
He intended to continue his explorations during the winter, and projected a journey into the interior, when the fine season should return. When the frigates commanded by Captain Cook, the Resolution and Adventure, arrived at the Cape, Forster invited the young Swedish naturalist to accompany him; and Sparrman was thus enabled to visit New Zealand, Van Diemen's Land, New Holland, Otaheite, Tierra del Fuego, the Antarctic Regions, and New Georgia, before his return to the Cape, where he landed on the 22nd of March, 1775.