The World’s Great Explorers and Explorations.

Edited by J. Scott Keltie, Librarian, Royal Geographical Society; H. J. Mackinder, M.A., Reader in Geography at the University of Oxford; and E. G. Ravenstein, F.R.G.S.

MUNGO PARK AND THE NIGER.

MUNGO PARK.

MUNGO PARK AND THE NIGER.

BY
JOSEPH THOMSON,
AUTHOR OF “THROUGH MASAI LAND,” ETC.

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
Publishers

[EDITORIAL PREFACE.]

The story of the world’s exploration is always attractive. We naturally take a keen interest in the personality of the men who have dared to force their way into the unknown, and so unveiled to us the face of mother earth. The interest in the work of exploration has been particularly strong and widespread in recent years, and it is believed that a series of volumes dealing with the great explorers and explorations of the past is likely to prove welcome to a wide circle of readers. Without a knowledge of what has been accomplished, the results of the unprecedented exploring activity of the present cannot be understood. It is hoped, therefore, that the present series will supply a real want. With one or two exceptions, each volume will deal mainly with one leading explorer, bringing out prominently the man’s personality, telling the story of his life, and showing in full detail what he did for the exploration of the world. When it may be necessary to depart somewhat from the general plan, it will always be kept in view that the series is essentially a popular one. When complete the series will form a Biographical History of Geographical Discovery.

The Editors congratulate themselves on having been able to secure the co-operation of men well known as the highest authorities in their own departments; their names are too familiar to the public to require introduction. Each writer is of course entirely responsible for his own work.

THE EDITORS.

[CONTENTS.]

[LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS.]

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.

ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT.

MAPS (Printed in Colours).

MAPS IN TEXT.

[MUNGO PARK AND THE NIGER.]

[CHAPTER I.]
THE FIRST GLIMMERING OF LIGHT.

To find the first allusion to the River Niger we have to go back to the very dawn of history.

Many centuries before the Christian era the spirit of geographical inquiry was abroad. There were then, as in later times, ardent minds whose eager curiosity would not let them rest content with a knowledge of their own countries. Then, as in the Middle Ages, kings and emperors thirsted for political aggrandisement, merchants for new sources of wealth, and enterprising spirits for opportunities to do deeds of high emprise which would send their names down to posterity.

Phœnicia, Greece, Carthage, Rome, had each its bold navigators and travellers, whose explorations can be more or less credibly gleaned from the mass of fable and misrepresentation which time and ignorance have gathered round them.

Even in those early days—twenty or more centuries ago—Africa was the chief centre of attraction to such as longed to extend their possessions or their knowledge of the earth’s surface. Already the mystery of the Nile and Inner Africa beyond the Great Desert had asserted its fascination over men’s minds. The Mediterranean nations vied with each other in sending expedition after expedition to explore the coast-line, and if possible circumnavigate the continent. Of these some ventured by way of the Straits of Gibraltar—the Pillars of Hercules, as they were then called—while others tried the Red Sea and the eastern coast. What these ancient mariners actually accomplished has been for centuries a matter of keen dispute, with but small clearing up of the obscure horizon. It is not therefore for us to enter into the debatable land, and happily the questions involved lie outside our province. Sufficient for our purpose is it to know that very extensive voyages were undertaken along both the east and west coasts of Africa. Among the most noteworthy and credible of these is the expedition sent by Necho, King of Egypt, with Phœnician navigators, which is said to have accomplished the circumnavigation of the continent; and the Carthaginian expedition of Hanno, which undoubtedly explored the western coast for a very considerable distance towards the equator.

But the enterprise of the Mediterranean nations was not confined only to the coast-line. The commercial spirit of Carthage and the warlike genius of Rome alike led them to seek the interior.

In this direction, however, each was fated to be as effectually checked as their sailors had been by sea. The burning heat, the wide stretches of barren sand, the waterless wastes, and the savage nomads which they had to encounter, were as terrible to face as the huge waves and frightful storms of the Atlantic. To the natural terrors of this desert region, forsaken of the gods, their imagination added every conceivable monstrosity, so that he indeed was a bold man who ventured from the gay and pleasant confines of the northern lands into the awful horrors of the Sahara.

Yet men there must have been, whether warriors, merchants, or simple explorers, we know not, who crossed the dreaded desert zone, and reached the more fertile countries of the negroes which lay beyond. In the pages of Herodotus and Strabo, of Pliny and of Ptolemy, amid all the mythological absurdities and ridiculous stories with which they abound, we find not only ample evidence of such successful adventure, but a wonderfully just estimate of the physical conditions which characterised the region lying between the Mediterranean and the Sudan. They describe first a zone of sharply contrasted fertility and barrenness, of green oasis and repellent desert, scantily inhabited by wild, roving tribes. Next comes a more terrible region lying further to the south—a land of desolation and death, swept by the wild sirocco and sandstorm, burnt by fierce relentless suns, unrefreshed by sparkling earth-born springs, unmoistened by the heaven-sent rain or by the gentle dew of night. Beyond lies a third region—the land of the negroes—made fertile by spring and stream, by marsh and lake.

More remarkable still is the fact that in each of the writers mentioned we find clear indications of a knowledge of a great river running through Negroland.

With minds on the search for a solution of the Nile problems—its origin, its course, and the mystery of its annual overflow—and from the likelihood that some of their informants had actually seen this river when it ran in an easterly direction, the opinion generally adopted by the ancients was that the river of the negroes was the Nile itself.

Of the various sources of information upon which the classical writers depended for their descriptions of these savage lands we know but little. One there is, however, which stands out with wonderful clearness and prominence and a general air of credibility—the expedition of the Nasamones as related by Herodotus.

The Nasamones—five young men of distinction, doubtless without suitable outlets for their ambitions and energies at home—set out from their native country to the south-west of Egypt, bent on the exploration of the heart of Africa.

Travelling partly south and partly west, they crossed the semi-inhabited, semi-sterile zone. Arrived at the confines of the great desert, they collected provisions and supplied themselves with water, and bold in heart “to seek, to conquer, or to die,” plunged into the terrible unknown. For many weary days they pursued their quest with unabated courage and perseverance. At length they emerged from the region of desolation and death, and found themselves in a fertile country inhabited by pigmies, having abundance of fruit trees, and watered by vast lakes and marshes. Furthermore, they found a large river flowing from west to east.

Whether these enterprising young African explorers had reached the neighbourhood of Lake Chad, as we might be disposed to believe, or the Niger in the vicinity of the great bend of the main stream, it would be waste of time to ask. Let us be satisfied with knowing that at this very early period of the world’s history, many centuries before the Christian era, the Central or Western Sudan of our days was reached, and the fact established that through it ran a great river.

In this way the exploration of Central Africa was inaugurated—the first uncertain glimmer of light thrown upon its dark surface; and the River Niger revealed to the world to be a theme of discussion to arm-chair geographers, and a goal to be aimed at by the more adventurous spirits who would realise their thoughts in deeds rather than on paper.

[CHAPTER II.]
MORE LIGHT: THE ARAB PERIOD.

For many centuries but little was added to the knowledge of Africa acquired by the early classical writers. Carthage fell from its high estate, and on its ruins Rome, with boundless ambition and seemingly boundless powers of attainment, built for itself a new and equally magnificent African Empire. But where man could not stay the advancing tide, Nature set bounds to the force of Roman arms, and at the borders of the desert mutely said, “Thus far shalt thou go, and no further.”

The Roman power rose to the zenith of its glory, and still the desert remained uncrossed; it dwindled towards its fall, and then its days of geographical conquest were over. In Northern Africa, as elsewhere, the mythological gave place to the Christian era, and the influence of the new religion spread apparently to the remotest desert tribes. It was not, however, fated to be permanent. In the seventh century a new prophet had risen in the Sacred East, and the seeds of a mighty revolution were germinating in the deserts of Arabia. The boundaries of its parent country soon proved too small for the astonishing vitalities and ardent missionary enterprise of the new faith—the faith of Islam. Bursting out, it pushed with incredible rapidity along the north of Africa, overwhelming Paganism and Christianity alike in its irresistible course, till reaching the Atlantic it turned to north and south in search of new fields to conquer for God. The natural difficulties which had stopped the southern progress of the Carthaginians and the Romans formed no barrier to a people born in a desert. In the plateau lands of the Berber tribes the Arabs were at home. Winged with a fiery enthusiasm which nothing could withstand, and inspired by a hope of heaven which nothing could shake, they swept from district to district, from tribe to tribe, everywhere carrying the blazing torch of Islam, everywhere striking fire from the roving people with whom they came in contact, till from every Saharan oasis there was heard the common cry, “There is no God but the one God.” In the new conflagration Christian symbols and Pagan idols alike disappeared in one fell holocaust.

To a race so educated and nurtured, so steeped in fiery ardour and unquenchable faith, and so imbued with the paramount importance of their mission—provided, moreover, as regards the practical part of their work, with the drought-enduring camel, hitherto unknown in Africa—the so-called impassable desert was no barrier to the performance of the task divinely set them. Only for him who turned back did hell yawn. For him who went forward it might be death, but it was death with Paradise gained.

In this spirit the terrors of the Sahara were faced, and faced only to be conquered; and ere the ninth century gave place to the tenth, the land of the negroes was reached, and the forces of Islam set themselves in array against those of heathendom. For the first time the Niger basin was now brought into direct relation with Northern Africa. The actual time when this was accomplished is still a matter of some doubt, though the statement is quoted by Barth that within less than a hundred years of the commencement of the Mohammedan era, schools and mosques were established in the negro kingdom of Ghana or Ghanata, to the west of Timbuktu. More incontestable is the statement of the Arab writer, Ebn Khaldun (A.D. 1380), that trading relations existed about 280 A.H. or 893 A.D. between the Upper Niger and Northern Africa. When these were first established we are not informed.

The vital forces which had found no barrier in the fierce nomads and physical difficulties of the Sahara, and had carried the disciples of Mohammed to the borders of the Sudan, met a check to their sweeping progress where one would have least expected it. Half the secret of the success of Islam had been that principle in the creed which was calculated to attract and inflame the ardent imaginations and easily excited temperaments of the Berber tribes of the north. With these Mohammedanism required but little aid from fire and sword for the spread of its tenets. It had but to be preached to be believed, making every hearer not only a convert but a missionary aflame with enthusiasm for the cause of God and Mohammed. Such, however, was not the case when Islam came face to face with the undeveloped lethargic minds of the barbarous blacks of the Sudan. The intellect of the negro had to be prepared for the reception of the new spiritual doctrines.

For a time a hard and fast line existed between Islam and Heathendom more or less closely coinciding with that drawn between Berber and Negro, Sahara and Sudan.

Only for a time, however. Though the new religious force could sweep on no longer in an irresistible, all-embracing tide, it was not to be prevented from gradually working its way into the sodden mass of Paganism. Along the whole line of opposing forces from Senegambia to Lake Chad, Mohammedan missionaries penetrated, not with fire and sword and all the horrors of brute force, but armed with the spiritual weapons of faith, hope, and ardent enthusiasm. Under their fostering care schools and mosques arose, around which converts gathered in ever-increasing numbers, until at length every region had its leavening germs, and awaited but the proper moment and the inspired leader to raise the watchword of Islam, and once more sweep onward with all the accumulated force of the dammed back torrent.

Within a short time of each other two such leaders appeared at opposite points of the Niger basin. In the west, near the great bend of the Niger, a king of Songhay embraced Islam about the year 1000, while near the close of the same century a king of Bornu followed his example.[1]

From those dates a new and more promising era commenced for the Central and Western Sudan. Under the fostering care and impulse of the new religion these backward regions commenced an upward progress. A new and powerful bond drew the scattered congeries of tribes together and welded them into powerful communities. Their moral and spiritual well-being increased by leaps and bounds, and their political and social life took an altogether higher level. The arts and industries of the North speedily became established among them, and with them came the love of decent dress, of cleanliness, of more orderly conduct. Whatever might be said of Mohammedanism in its final influence, there could be no question but that it had the amount of good in it necessary to raise a barbarous people to a higher level of civilisation. There was an adaptability and a simplicity about it well suited to the comprehension of untutored minds, and in that lay the secret of a success such as has never since been even distantly approached by any other propagandist religion in Africa.

To the rulers of Songhay and Bornu the watchword of Islam, “There is no God but the one God,” soon became a war-cry destined to be irresistible in its magic influence. Armed with the new spiritual force these hitherto barbarous kingdoms rose to extraordinary heights of power. Songhay gradually spread its influence over all the upper reaches of the Niger till it had absorbed the old kingdoms of Ghanata, to the north of the Niger, and Melli, to the south. With the political influences of Songhay went the religious forces at its back. At times there were checks to its military power, but only when the religious enthusiasm and missionary ardour of its rulers temporarily sank and were outstripped by the greater zeal of neighbouring princes. With these exceptions, the history of Songhay was that of general progress, political, social, and commercial. The kingdom reached the zenith of its power at the beginning of the sixteenth century under a powerful negro king named Hadj Mohammed Askia, whose rule extended from the centre of the present empire of Sokoto to the borders of the Atlantic, a distance from east to west of 1500 miles, and from Mosi in the south as far as the oasis of Tawat in the north, i.e., something over 1000 miles.[2]

Askia was no mere warrior anxious for his own aggrandisement. As was the case with all the great Sudanese rulers of those early days, he was noted for his ardent faith as well as for his love of justice and clemency, so that, as his historian, Ahmed Baba of Timbuktu, wrote of him, “God made use of his services in order to save the true believers (in Negroland) from their sufferings and calamities.” He built mosques and schools, and did everything in his power to encourage learning; and not unmindful of the material prosperity of his people, encouraged merchants from all parts of the Sudan, the Sahara, and North Africa. Thus not only was he loved and revered by his subjects, but his fame extended to the most distant countries.

Unhappily the magnificent empire thus founded had not the elements of stability. There was too much of the one man power, with no firm governmental foundations apart from the ruler. In consequence, the history of Songhay was one of varying fortunes. Old kingdoms such as Melli temporarily regained their independence, distant provinces were continually breaking loose, and there were constant wars of succession and military revolts. But though often scotched it was never killed, till an altogether new enemy appeared in the person of Mulai Hamed, Sultan of Morocco, before whose musketeers it was doomed to become extinct as an independent kingdom. This happened in 1591, in the reign of Askia Ishak. Ahmed Baba, the native historian, who lived at the time, and was himself not only a material sufferer, but a prisoner carried off to Morocco, said of this terrible disaster: “Thus this Mahalla (or expedition) at that period found in Sudan (Songhay) one of those countries of the earth which are most favoured with comfort, plenty, peace, and prosperity everywhere; such was the working of the government of the Emir el Mumenin, Askia el Hadj Mohammed ben Abu Bakr, in consequence of his justice and the power of his royal command, which took full and peremptory effect, not only in his capital (Gogo), but in all the districts of his whole empire, from the province of Dendi to the frontier of Morocco, and from the territory of Bennendugu (to the south of Jinni) as far as Zeghaza and Tawat. But in a moment all was changed, and peaceful repose was succeeded by a constant state of fear, comfort and security by troubles and suffering; ruin and misfortune took the place of prosperity, and people began everywhere to fight against each other, and property and life became exposed to constant danger; and this ruin began, spread, increased, and at length prevailed throughout the whole region.”[3] If it be remembered that this was written in Arabic by a Niger native at the end of the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth centuries about a negro sultan ruling over a kingdom partly negro and partly Berber, the wonder of it cannot but strike the thoughtful mind.

But in the Niger basin Songhay was not the only centre of marvellous political and social development under the influence of Mohammedanism. Bornu was in every sense its rival. We have already seen that towards the close of the eleventh century the king of Bornu (Dunama ben Humé) had embraced Islam. The result of the union of material power with spiritual inspiration was soon made manifest, for before Ben Humé died he had founded a vigorous empire whose influence was felt as far as Egypt. It was not, however, till the middle of the thirteenth century that Bornu rose to its greatest power and the zenith of its glory under the able rule of one Dibalami Dunama Selmami. At that time Bornu, or, as it was sometimes called, Kameni (?), which was then the seat of government, extended from the Nile to the Niger, and from Mabina (Adamawa?) in the south to Wadan in the north, according to Imam Ahmed (1571-1603), the native historian of Bornu, as Ahmed Baba had been that of Songhay. But Dunama did not only increase the material power of Bornu. Like Askia of Songhay, he encouraged religion, so that “the true faith in his time was largely disseminated,” according to Ebn Said (1282), an Arab writer.

After Dunama’s death troublesome times fell upon the empire, and a long period of civil wars and disastrous expeditions followed. Brighter times came back with the ascent of Ali (1472) to the throne, and once more Bornu regained its former grandeur. It is clear that Ali’s kingdom extended far to the west of the Niger, and became known to the Portuguese, who as far back as 1489 show Bernu or Bornu on their maps.

Under the two succeeding reigns of Edris and Mohammed, Bornu still further added to its importance, and had relations with the northern sultans of Tripoli.

The most remarkable, however, of all the Bornu rulers seems to have been Edris Alawoma (1571-1603), who had the advantage of having a contemporary biographer in the person of Imam Ahmed. This prince seems not only to have been an enterprising and able warrior, but was distinguished alike for mildness and justice, and for far-seeing statesmanship. Under him the empire grew to enormous proportions, and included almost the whole of the Central and much of the Western Sudan. At the same time the country became more prosperous, the wealth of the towns increased, and the Mohammedan religion and education spread widely and rapidly.

Happily Bornu was established on a more stable basis than Songhay. It had more cohesion in its various elements, and was less dependent on the warlike character of its rulers to keep it from falling to pieces. Its princes also seem to have been of a better and more liberal-minded stock. We even gather from the native chronicles that they were “learned, liberal towards the Ilama, prodigal dispensers of alms, friends of science and religion, gracious and compassionate towards the poor.” Hence it was that while Songhay and other states rose and fell, Bornu retained its position and independence. In the beginning of this century it experienced a temporary eclipse before the conquering arms of the Fillani in their mission of religious regeneration, but only to emerge again as vigorous as ever, though now restricted in its political influence to Bornu proper and the immediate neighbourhood of Lake Chad.

But while Songhay and Bornu were for centuries working out their remarkable political, religious, social, and commercial development, they were, as we have already pointed out, by no means shut off from intercourse with the outside world. The thirst for the slaves of Bornu and for the gold of Melli and the Upper Niger was almost as potent a force with the later generations of Arabs as was religious zeal among their ancestors. For the one as for the other all the terrors of the desert route were braved, and constant communication kept up with the Sudan. At first Egypt seems to have been the first point of departure of the Sudanese caravan, one route passing westward to Songhay and the region of the Upper Niger, while another diverged from it, and passed south to the Chad basin. In later times Egypt gave place to Tripoli as the starting-point, though practically the same routes were utilised to reach the same goals. At an early period also the most dangerous part of the whole Sahara, that region, namely, lying between the Upper Niger and Morocco, was traversed by indefatigable Moorish traders for the sake of its slaves and gold. The terminus of their route was at first considerably to the west of Timbuktu, at a place called Biru or Walata, where, indeed, nearly all the western trans-Saharan traffic converged in the earlier days of commercial intercourse.

Towards the end of the eleventh century Timbuktu was founded as a trading station by the Tuaregs of the Sahara, but it was not until it fell into the hands of a powerful king of Melli some two centuries later that it became a place of some importance. At once it developed into an international market of the first rank, where merchants from Egypt, Tripoli, Morocco, the Saharan oases, and the Sudan met to exchange their various articles of barter.

At no time was Timbuktu the capital of a great kingdom. Its greatness solely depended upon its trade, and its convenience as a collecting and dispersing centre. That it should have become so well known above all the places of the Sudan is easily understood if it be remembered that it was the goal for which all the merchants of Northern Africa aimed. Politically, Timbuktu was thus raised to a position of undue importance, though commercially, as the merchant capital, it could not be overrated.

With the rise of the Songhay power Timbuktu became subject to that kingdom. With the fall of the former it assumed a measure of political importance as the centre of Moorish power, till on the division from Morocco it resumed its old status as nothing more nor less than a trading centre, a position it has retained to this day.

Among a people of such commercial activity and enterprise as the Arabs of Morocco, Tripoli, and Egypt, naturally there were not awanting numbers of students eager to collect and collate information regarding the inland countries to which their merchants travelled. Among the host of historians and geographers who supply us with interesting facts, we may mention El Bekri, El Edrisi (1153), Ebn Said (1282), Ebn Khaldun (1382), and Makrizi (1400).

But the Arabs had their explorers as well as their writers. Among these two stand out with marked prominence, viz., Ebn Batuta (1353), and Leo Africanus (1528). Ebn Batuta, who seems to have been devoured with a thirst for travel, and had visited almost all the countries of the then known world, commenced his Central African explorations from Morocco, and crossed the desert to Walata, the frontier province of Melli, situated not far from the Niger. From Walata he crossed the Niger to the capital of the kingdom, and thence by land proceeded to Timbuktu. From Kabara, the “port” of Timbuktu, he sailed down the Niger to Gogo, the capital of Songhay, and thence turned northward again across the desert by way of the oasis of Tawat to Morocco.

The travels of Leo Africanus were even more extensive, for he travelled over the whole of the Central and Western Sudan. Considering that he wrote an account of his travels from memory many years after, the events recorded, and the accuracy and amount of varied information he gives regarding the countries he visited, are astonishing. He describes not only the kingdoms of Melli, Songhay, and Bornu, but also the countries that lie between, Gober, Katsena, Kano, and Agades, of all of which he has something important to say. Even when he seems to draw most upon our credulity he is generally quite correct, as for instance when he describes the people of one district kindling fires at night under their bedsteads to keep themselves warm. To the truth of this statement the writer of these lines can testify from personal observation, the precaution being adopted, however, not to ward off external cold, but that of ague, a disease to which many places on the Niger are subject at certain times of the year.

It is not our intention to enter into the vexed question of what the Arab writers and travellers knew regarding the course and final destination of the Niger. Those of them who travelled did not do so as geographers, and though they noted accurately enough what they did see, they troubled themselves very little with what they did not see, and held aloof from inquiries of a purely speculative character. M‘Queen[4] has made it clear, however, that many of them were aware that the Nile and the Niger were distinct, and that the general tendency of Arab opinion was to make the latter river fall into the Atlantic.

Much of the confusion as to what the Arabs did know or believe arose largely from the ignorance of European geographers in confounding the western kingdom of Ghana with the central one of Kano, and of the town of Kugha, near the Upper Niger, with that of Kuka in Bornu. With the new light thrown upon the history and geography of the Niger basin, we can now see that the Arab writers had a wonderfully accurate conception of the political and physical characteristics of the region in question. To them is due not only the honour of having raised the veil which shrouded the Sudan, and spread the seeds of civilisation, which have flourished so remarkably, but also of disseminating a knowledge of that region among western nations—a knowledge destined, as we shall see, to be caught up and carried to great ends with European vigour and scientific accuracy.

[CHAPTER III.]
OPENING UP THE WAY TO THE NIGER.

With Leo Africanus the Arab period in the history of African exploration practically closed. Even in that traveller’s day the incurable diseases so characteristic of the Mohammedan states of our time were rapidly developing. Learning and the arts were no longer encouraged. Liberality of thought and missionary enterprise were replaced by Fanaticism, hatred of the stranger, and isolation from all outside genial influences. A blight was falling over everything that had made the Arab name great and glorious in the world’s history.

Happily for the cause of progress, while the Crescent thus waned and lost its lustre in the rising mephitic fogs, the Cross was ever gathering to itself new glories, and proving the herald and morning-star of a brighter and greater era. Under its inspiring influences the western nations were emerging from the gloom and ignorance in which they had been enshrouded, and were feeling the throbs of new heroic impulses.

Among the Christian nations thus awakening Portugal was taking the lead. Facing the Atlantic, it was ever looking over the wild waste of waters, picturing the possible beyond on the blank expanse, and rearing a hardy race of navigators all unconscious of the great mission that was yet to be theirs. Southward, too, their thoughts were ever turning, following their soldiers as they fought against the Moors and planted their most Christian flag along the entire coast-line of Morocco. Echoes there were which came to them of the vast wealth of Inner Africa, of the power of Prester John and the riches of far Cathay, till the imaginations of kings, soldiers, merchants, and priests were alike inflamed with a desire to share them. With it all the vaguest ideas were current as to the extent of the African continent. The northern coast-line was well enough known, but at the beginning of the fifteenth century no one had ventured southward beyond the western termination of the Atlas Mountains, and how much further south the land extended no one pretended to know. This ignorance, however, did not last through the century.

Under its energetic and far-seeing kings, John and Immanuel, Portugal set itself to penetrate behind the veil and attain the honour and the more substantial rewards secured, as was believed, to those who should first reach the sources of the gold supply of Inner Africa, the capital of Prester John, or the countries of the Far East.

Extensive voyages were then unthought of. Sailing was very much a matter of feeling one’s way along the shore. Hence it was not by any one extensive voyage, but by many successive expeditions, that the shore-line of Africa was gradually mapped out. In this way greater courage, confidence, experience, and skill were gained with each successful addition to the limits of the known, and a spirit of emulation was aroused which irresistibly carried the new knight errants of commerce and science further and further south in search of the promised land.

In 1433 Cape Bojador was reached by Gilianez, and the Island of Arguin by Nuno Tristan ten years later. So far deserts and burning suns, a repellent coast-line and a meagre population of wild nomads, were what they found—no news of Prester John, no evidence of the vast riches they had taught themselves to expect. But nothing was allowed to damp their eager spirit or quash their sanguine expectations.

In 1446 Fernandez passed Cape Verd, and in the following year the fertile region of Senegambia was reached by Lancelot.

It now seemed as if the bold adventurers were to have their reward. They had at last arrived at a fertile region abounding in gold and ivory, and, better still, they began to hear of a great kingdom named Melli, not then absorbed in the rapidly rising empire of Songhay. This, they thought, must be the country of Prester John.

These important discoveries, and all the glowing hopes they developed, gave a new impetus to the course of Portuguese discovery. With renewed enterprise and persistence adventurous navigators pursued the path of exploration. By 1471 they had reached the Gold Coast, and before the close of the century the Cape had been rounded, and, under the leadership of Almeida and Albuquerque, some of their magnificent dreams of wealth and power realised in the foundation of their Indian Empire.

But though the Portuguese had thus revealed to the world the Senegal and the Gambia, and apparently thrown open a door to the kingdom of the Niger basin, nothing came of it. From the writings of De Barros we gather that embassies from the King of Portugal were despatched to the rulers of Melli and Mosi, and even, it is said, to that of Songhay. Of these missions, however, nothing more has come down to us. They added seemingly nothing to our knowledge of the interior. Factories were established along the coast, and even some distance up the rivers Senegal and Gambia, but the thirst for gold and slaves evidently swamped all other considerations with the agents in charge, for not an iota of information do we gather from them—or at least none is now on record—of the geography of the far interior.

The magnificent enterprise of Portugal in the fields of maritime discovery was destined to be of the most transient character. Evil days speedily came upon it, and between Philip II. of Spain on land and the Dutch at sea, it seemed for a time as if it would lose its place among the independent nations of Europe.

From the time of its conquest by Spain its course was backward, and its history became a record of shrinking empire and gradual loss of all spirit that tends to national greatness and progress. As far as we are concerned the work of the Portuguese ended with the exploration of the Senegambian Coast, the discovery of the rivers Senegal and Gambia—then thought to be branches of the Niger—and the revelation to Europe of the future route to the Niger and Timbuktu.

The work of exploration so well begun, so magnificently carried on, though so disastrously closed, began now to fall into other hands. Contemporaneously with the dwindling of the Portuguese into the background the English came to the front. It was then the Elizabethan period, that era of glorious memory, the dawn of Greater Britain. Bold mariners, like the world has never seen, sprang up on all sides, and made England the mistress of the seas. A spirit of commercial enterprise and adventurous daring was developed which nothing could dismay, nothing withstand. Before the close of that eventful period Drake had led his countrymen to the rich spoil of the Spanish Main, Raleigh had laid the foundation of English rule in North America, Baffin and Hudson had cleared the way for Arctic exploration, and Davis had not only started the series of heroic expeditions connected with the North-west Passage, but had led English ships to the Indian Seas.

With these, however, we have nothing to do. Of more importance is it to us to note that Hawkins had made his first voyage to the West African Coast, and inaugurated that horrid traffic in human flesh and blood which has left such an indelible stain on British commerce.

But it was not only the slave trade which drew the attention of English merchants to Africa. To them as to the Portuguese the Niger and Timbuktu were words to conjure with. Both were believed to be veritable mines of wealth. To the imagination of the time the one was pictured as flowing over golden sands, the other as almost paved with the precious metal. It was believed that the Senegal and the Gambia constituted the Niger mouths, and accordingly that to ascend either river would bring the traveller direct to the source of so much wealth. To accomplish this now became the dream of nations, so that it may well be said that the Niger and its fancied treasures were the magnet which drew men on to the exploration of the interior of the Dark Continent.

It had been the mission of Portugal to draw a girdle round Africa; it was now to be the rôle of Britain to take up the work and penetrate inland with more lasting results than had followed Portuguese embassies and missionary and commercial enterprises.

The year 1618 saw the commencement of this noble work. A company was formed to explore the Gambia, with the object of reaching the rich region of the Niger.

The honour of being Britain’s pioneer in African exploration fell to the lot of one Richard Thompson, described as being a man of spirit and enterprise. He left England in the Catherine, of 120 tons, with a cargo worth nearly £2000, and reached the Gambia towards the end of the year. Here he found the Portuguese still in power, ruling the nations with grinding tyranny, though rapidly sinking into the commercial and national apathy which has made them a byword in the nineteenth century.

Thompson’s enterprise, like so many which succeeded it, was doomed to suffer sad disaster. First the Portuguese fell upon and massacred a large part of the crew while its captain was exploring up the river. Undismayed he stuck to his post, and demanded reinforcements and supplies. His employers were of like metal to himself, and promptly sent another vessel to his assistance. The climate proved as formidable an enemy as the Portuguese, and most of the crew of the new ship succumbed to the deadly miasma.

Still another vessel was fitted out, its owners undaunted by loss of men and goods, and sanguine as ever of the glorious prize to be achieved.

This time one Richard Jobson took command. He arrived in the Gambia in 1620, only to hear of a new calamity and a new and even more paralysing source of danger—Thompson’s men had mutinied and murdered him. Portuguese hostility, a deadly climate, and mutiny in the camp were all arrayed against the hoped for advance into the country. But those old mariners were made of stern unyielding stuff, which only death itself could break, and undismayed Jobson defied all dangers and started on his quest. With each succeeding mile new difficulties beset the gallant band. No pilots could be got to show the way. For a time this proved no serious obstacle. Soon, however, the current grew stronger, and threatened to drive them back. They were in hourly peril from hidden rocks, and falls and rapids raised a foaming barrier to further progress. Sand-banks there were, too, on which they grounded, and crocodiles had to be braved in getting clear of them, while sea-horses snorted angrily and threatened to swamp the boats. Unprovided with the mosquito-nets of modern times, their days of overpowering fatigue under a melting sun were followed by nights of maddening torture under the stings of myriad mosquitoes and sandflies. But everything was new and wonderful to them. They were like children bursting into a new world full of undreamed of marvels, a veritable land of enchantment. The voracious crocodiles and the monstrous hippos in the river, elephants in troops crashing irresistibly through the dense forest, leopards watching cat-like for their prey, and lions disturbing the silence of night with their awe-inspiring roars, were some of the elements of this new wonderland. There, too, were monkeys among the trees—their gambols a never failing source of delight; and baboons trooping through the underbush in enormous herds, filling the air with strange outcries, except when “one great voice would exalt itself, and the rest were hushed.”

Not less astonishing was the insect life of the tropic forest—the fireflies in myriad numbers flashing with iridescent colours in the gloom of night, the crickets raising their deafening chorus, the strange beetles, and the many-coloured butterflies.

How marvellous, too, must the tropic foliage have appeared to the explorers, fresh as they were from England. The immense grasses, the almost impenetrable undergrowth, the beauties of the palm tribe, the majesty of the silk-cotton tree. Last, not least, how passing strange the appearance of the natives, their comparative absence of dress, their simple habits and rudimentary ideas about all things under heaven. The modern traveller, blasé with the rich heritage of a hundred predecessors, cannot but envy the sensations of such an one as Jobson on seeing for the first time all the marvels, beauties, and novelties of Africa.

But while we vainly try to realise the feelings inspired in the mind of this pioneer, we are not oblivious of the terrible earnestness and determination, the indomitable courage and dogged perseverance of the man. The very devil himself has no terrors for Jobson. Hearing certain remarkable sounds, and being told by the natives that it is the voice of the devil, the intrepid sailor seizes his gun and rushes forth to do battle with his Satanic Majesty, who, on our hero’s appearance, changes his terrible roars into notes of terror, and shows himself as a huge negro grovelling in the dust in an agony of fear.

On the 26th January 1621, Jobson had reached a place called Tenda, where he heard of a city four months’ journey into the interior, the roofs of which were covered with gold. Unhappily, however much his appetite might be whetted by such wonderful stories, it had to remain unsatisfied. The dry season soon began to tell upon the volume of water in the river, making advance daily more difficult, till within a few days of a town called Tombaconda, some 300 miles from the sea, he was compelled to desist from further attempts, although he believed that Tombaconda was Timbuktu itself, in reality distant about 1000 miles. On the 10th February he commenced his return, hoping to go back and complete his work with the rising of the waters, a project he however never executed.

Quarrels broke out between the merchants on the river and the Company, and the enterprise for the time being collapsed.

It was not till nearly a century later that a new attempt was made to prosecute the task of reaching the Niger and the wealth of Inner Africa. In 1720, the Duke of Chandos, acting as chairman of the African Company, instigated a new expedition by way of the Gambia to the land of promise.

This time the enterprise was placed under the leadership of one Captain Bartholomew Stibbs, who left England in 1723, and arrived in the Gambia in October of that year. His experiences were identical with those of Jobson, though he did not reach the latter’s highest point. Between them, however, it was made quite clear that the Gambia had no connection with the Niger, and as little with the Senegal.

With Stibbs ended the English commercial attempts to open up the way to the interior of Africa.

The addition to our knowledge of its geography amounted to the exploration of the navigable part of the Gambia, and the determination of the fact that it had no connection with the Niger.

The French meanwhile were doing for the Senegal what the British were accomplishing in the sister river. Six years after Thompson had entered the latter, the French had established themselves at the mouth of the Senegal and founded the town of St. Louis. Their first exploring trip was made in 1637, when they penetrated some distance along the navigable part of the river.

More important, however, was the expedition in 1697 of one Sieur Brue, director-general of the French African Company, which achieved considerable success. This expedition was backed up by a second voyage up the river two years later, when the fort of St. Joseph was founded, and trade opened with merchants from Timbuktu.

Sieur Brue’s experiences were in every respect similar to those of Jobson and Stibbs on the Gambia, though commercially more fortunate, inasmuch as he had to do with more advanced races, and contrived to reach the frontiers of a rich gold-bearing district (Bambuk) on the one hand, and of an equally profitable gum region on the other.

He also heard much of the Niger and Timbuktu, and seemingly satisfied himself that the Senegal had no connection with the famous river of the interior, and that the latter flowed east, not west, as it was the tendency of his day to believe, since we find the French maps of the eighteenth century showing the Niger flowing towards the interior and an uncertain bourne.

[CHAPTER IV.]
PREPARING FOR PARK: THE AFRICAN ASSOCIATION.

The latter part of the eighteenth century marks the commencement of the modern period of African exploration. So far all African enterprises had been instigated by governments for national aggrandisement, or by merchants with commercial objects in view. Early Portuguese discovery was a type of the one; the British expedition to the Gambia an example of the other. But now the time had come when, dissociated from both, African exploration was to start forth on a new line of unselfish research, and accomplish what governments and commercial communities had failed in doing.

To the African Association belongs the honour of inaugurating this new and more glorious era. Lord Rawdon, afterwards Marquis of Hastings, Sir Joseph Banks, the Bishop of Landaff, Mr. Beaufoy, and Mr. Stuart, were the first managers of this Association, whose objects were the promotion of discovery in Africa, and the spread of information, commercial, political, and scientific, regarding the still sadly unknown continent.

At first the Association devoted their attention to Northern Africa, and in a short time were instrumental in gathering together much reliable and valuable information as to the Mohammedan states of that region.

Their inquiries, however, were not to be bounded by the Sahara any more than the first onrush of the Mohammedan torrent.

The routes of the large caravans to the Sudan were made a subject of investigation, and the Arab writers laid under contribution to satisfy the demand for more light.

To the Niger especially their inquiries were turned, in the hope of solving the mystery of its true position and its course. Where did it commence and where did it end? was the double problem which puzzled the eighteenth century geographers more even than the question of the source of the Nile.

Not content with inquiries which only landed them in perplexities and endless discussion, they resolved to send out explorers. To such they offered no monetary inducements, no hope of tangible reward. The honour and glory of discovery were to be their prize: the Association at the same time undertaking, for their part, to defray the traveller’s expenses.

The inducements offered were quite sufficient. Admirably qualified men presented themselves in greater numbers than were needed, so that the chief difficulty of the Association was to choose rather than to seek.

The first of the heroic band of African pioneers was Ledyard, already a traveller of the most varied experience. His mission was to cross the African Continent from the Nile to the Atlantic. At the threshold of his enterprise he perished of fever in 1788.

Mr. Lucas was the next to take up the work. His qualifications were an intimate knowledge of Moorish life and language, gathered first as a slave in Morocco, then as British Vice-Consul to that empire. The work marked out for him was to start from Tripoli and cross the Sahara to the Sudan. In this he failed. A revolt of Arab tribes barred the way, and Mr. Lucas abandoned the enterprise, bringing back with him only additional particulars regarding the interior, which he had gathered from native merchants.

More successful in the earlier part of a succeeding expedition was Horneman (1789), who undoubtedly crossed the desert, but crossed it only to disappear for ever.

Clearly Africa was a hard nut to crack, and dangerous to whomsoever should essay it.

Foiled in their attempts to reach the goal of their desires from the north, the African Association next turned to West Africa for a possible opening to the interior. Once more the Gambia was chosen as the most direct and feasible route.

In Major Houghton they seemed to have got the right man for the work. As Consul at Morocco he had gained an acquaintance with the Moors and their language, and at Goree, then in British hands, he had come in contact with the West African negro, and learned the conditions of life and travel obtaining in the Gambia region.

The new attempt was made in 1791. Unlike Jobson and Stibbs, the adventurous explorer did not proceed by boat and with a large European party, but by land, single-handed, and attended by the most modest of retinues. At first all went well; no difficulties or troubles retarded his progress. Generally following the course of the river he safely reached Medina, the capital of Wuli, and was hospitably received by the king of the place. Less kind were the elements. A fire which reduced the town to ashes deprived him of much of his goods. From Medina Houghton’s route diverged from the Gambia, passing west to the Falemé, a southern tributary of the Senegal, and frontier line of the gold-bearing region of Bambuk. Here also he was received with hospitality, and was sent on his way through Bambuk rejoicing. Not to rejoice long, however. The last communication received from him contained these graphic lines: “Major Houghton’s compliments to Dr. Laidley; is in good health, on his way to Timbuktu; robbed of all his goods by Fenda Bukar’s son.” No despair in these words, whatever calamities might have befallen the writer; no halting in the resolution to achieve his object—only the one unhesitating determination to go forward. But it was to go forward to die. In spite of Fenda Bukar’s son he seems still to have possessed sufficient means to rouse the unscrupulous cupidity of some Moors. Lured on by these wretches he was led into the desert, where he was stripped of everything and left to a horrible death.

It would seem that the disastrous ending of these various expeditions had thrown a damper upon the eagerness of volunteers to continue the work, for we now find the African Association offering the inducement of a liberal recompense to whomsoever would take up the task broken off by Houghton’s death.

Little wonder if qualified men hesitated to offer themselves. African fevers had a terror then which they no longer possess. The continent was practically unknown, and to the imagination, with no facts to act as correctives, everything wore a terrible aspect. Cannibalism, general bloodthirstiness and ferocity, a love of plunder, and all manner of horrible practices, were associated with the name of negro. Death by thirst or starvation was thought likely to be the lot of those who escaped the miasma of the land or the murderous spear of the native. Brave indeed would be the man who should face such an accumulation of vaguely discerned and mightily exaggerated horrors.

Nevertheless the African Association had not long to wait. At this crisis in their affairs the man for the work was forthcoming, one destined to crown their hopes with a triumphant success, to inaugurate a more brilliant future for African travel, and give it such an impetus as would carry it on to a glorious issue. This was Mungo Park.

[CHAPTER V.]
MUNGO PARK.

To continue our narrative of exploration we must now leave the sweltering suns and miasmatic atmosphere of Western Africa for the temperate climate and bracing breezy hillsides of southern Scotland—turning from the river dear to the geographer to the stream loved of the poet—from the Niger to the Yarrow.

The man whose mission it was to break through the isolating barriers reared by savagery and a deadly climate between the land of the negro and all outside humanising influences, must needs have an heroic cradle, and come of an heroic race. His must be the nurture of the Spartan, physically equipping him to battle with hardship and privation—his the education and upbringing which tend to all forms of noble discontent and deeds of high emprise.

Such a cradle and such a race were Ettrickdale and its peasantry. Theirs was the life of honest toil and constant self-restraint, and theirs the direct and indirect education which in the right man develops romantic instincts, and weds to a perfervid imagination stern religious convictions, intense practicality, and prosaic tenacity of purpose. Theirs were the surroundings fitted alike to mould the poet or the hero—him who should sing of the chivalry of the past, or him who should be of the chivalry of the present, in whatever field is scope for praiseworthy ambition and highest aspiration—clear-sighted vision and undaunted courage, dogged persistence and untiring perseverance, fortitude under reverses, and physical powers to endure privation.

This, then, was the heritage which Ettrickdale had to offer to her sons; and this, as one of them, the heritage of Mungo Park, the first of the knight errantry of Africa.

BIRTHPLACE OF MUNGO PARK.

Of the early life of him who was destined to partially unveil the face of Africa we know but little, though that little is sufficiently significant and satisfactory.

Mungo Park was born on the 10th September 1771 in the cottage of Foulshiels, some four and a half miles from Selkirk. Foulshiels stands in the very centre of the loveliest scenery of the glen of Yarrow, facing on the opposite side of the valley the stately tower of Newark. Eastward it commands a view over the woods and groves and “birchen bowers” of the widening dale to where it merges in the valley of the Ettrick near Selkirk. Westward it fronts a magnificent panorama of hill and dale, through which curves the Yarrow in broken gleaming reaches, from the wild romantic scenery of its loch and mountain sources. To front and rear rise stately hills, their bases separated and washed by the rushing streams, their lower slopes clad with oak and fir, their upper with grass and heather, over which the winds sweep unopposed.

But if the surroundings of Park’s birthplace were grand, the cottage, of which the ruins still exist, was humble in the extreme. It was neither better nor worse than might be tenanted by shepherds of the present day in out-of-the-way places, being built substantially of whinstone and lime, and containing at the most three apartments. The building presents not a trace of ornament, not a relieving cornice, thus fitly expressing the character of its occupants, their extreme practicality, their plain honest soundness and indifference to all external graces. From such a cottage sprang a Burns, and later on a Carlyle.

Mungo was the seventh child of a family of thirteen, of whom, however, only eight reached the age of maturity. By unremitting care and hard work his father had raised himself to the position of a small farmer—how small his cottage sufficiently shows. In him, however, we have undoubtedly one of that type of Scottish fathers who will pinch his own body and double the slavery of his life in order that his children may receive a better education than he himself had, and that their minds at least may not be starved and stunted. As Park’s first biographer puts it, writing in 1816, “The attention of the Scottish farmers and peasantry to the early instruction of their children is strongly exemplified in the history of Park’s family. The diffusion of knowledge among the natives of that part of the kingdom and their general intelligence must be admitted by every unprejudiced observer; nor is there any country in which the effects of education are so conspicuous in promoting industry and good conduct, and in producing useful and respectable men of the inferior and middle classes admirably fitted for all the important offices of common life.”

It would seem that there was no school near enough to Foulshiels for the Park children in the earlier years of their life to be able to attend, since we find a resident teacher engaged to impart the necessary rudiments of education.

With maturer years Mungo was transferred to the Selkirk Grammar School, to which he probably walked each morning.

From this time we begin to get glimpses of his peculiar personality and character. It does not appear that he showed any special talent while at school, though constant in his attendance, and studious in application. We gather that he was dreamy and reserved, a great reader, a lover of poetry, and passionately fond of the quaint lore and simple minstrelsy so markedly associated with the border counties of Scotland.

His, clearly, was not the temperament which would receive its guiding impulses from the routine work of school or the precepts and instruction of schoolmasters. Such conventional influences would never have led him to Africa. His inspirations were derived from the ballads that were sung and the tales that were told by every country fireside. For him the rushing Yarrow, Newark’s ruined towers, the spreading field, the swelling hillside, and the mountain top were teachers, each with a tale to tell of bold adventure or of deadly strife.

The whole country was redolent with the romance of the half-forgotten past, with a hundred memories dear to a patriotic heart. In all around him there was something to throw a glamour over his young eager mind, something to fire his imagination and arouse eager longings to be up and doing deeds undefined, yet ever great and noble. From the stately castle, which now looked down on him in melancholy ruined majesty, brave knights of bygone days had ridden forth to fight for king and country or for love. Their day was past, but might not he in other guise emerge from his lowly cottage, and with other weapons win his golden spurs.

In what way all these vague ambitions and this spiritual fermentation was to end there was but small indication. It is given only to the few to realise in after life the romantic dreams of their youth.

At first it seems Mungo was destined by his father for the ministry, but he himself preferred medicine, to which choice no objection appears to have been made.

To acquire the rudiments of his medical education, when fifteen years of age he was placed, as was the custom of the time, as apprentice to Dr. Thomas Anderson, a surgeon in Selkirk, a gentleman whose descendants still practise the healing art in the same town. For three years he remained with the Doctor, not only acquiring a knowledge of medicine, but still further grounding himself in the classics and other branches of education at the Grammar School.

Further than this we know nothing of his life in the Anderson family, though that his time was agreeably spent we may deduce from the fact that, as we shall see later on, he some years after married Dr. Anderson’s eldest daughter.

In the year 1789 Park left Selkirk for the University of Edinburgh to complete his medical studies. Three successive sessions seems to have been all that was necessary to qualify in these days.

We are told that he was an ardent student, and distinguished among his fellows. Botany was his favourite subject, this fact being doubtless largely due to the inspiring influence of his brother-in-law, Mr. James Dickson, who from being a gardener had raised himself by his own exertions to be no common botanist and the author of some valuable and important works.

It was while still a medical student that Park came more directly in contact with Dickson, and with him he went a botanical tour in the Highlands.

Dickson did more for his young brother-in-law than inspire him with a love of botany. He was on a footing of considerable intimacy with Sir Joseph Banks, one of the chief managers of the African Association, and when Park left the University he introduced him to his influential friend, and so brought him in contact with the influences which were to make Mungo Park the first of famous African travellers.

But the time was not yet. Park had still to prepare himself practically for his great mission by widening his experience of life and travel—had still to get further bitten with the fever of unrest. Hence in 1792 we find him sailing not to Africa, but to the East, as surgeon in the East India Company’s service.

At this point he supplies us with an admirable and characteristic glimpse of himself in a letter addressed to his teacher in surgery and future father-in-law, Dr. Anderson of Selkirk. The letter is dated London, 23rd January 1793, and the following is an interesting portion:—

“I have now got upon the first step of the stair of ambition. Here’s a figure of it. (A pen and ink sketch is here given of a flight of steps with a man on the lowest.) It very nearly resembles one of Gordon’s traps which he uses in the library. Now, if I should run up the stair, you see the consequence. I must either be mortified by seeing I can get no further, or, by taking an airy step, knock my brains out against the large folio of some succeeding author. May I use my little advantage in height to enable me to perform the office of a watchman to the rest of mankind, and call to them, ‘Take care, sirs! Don’t look too high, or you’ll break your legs on that stool. Open your eyes; you are going straight for the fire.’

“Passed at Surgeons’ Hall! Associate of the Linnean Society! I walked three or four times backwards and forwards through the hall, and had actually begun to count the panes of glass in the large window, when the bell rang, and the beadle roared out, ‘Mr. Park!’ Macbeth’s start when he beheld the dagger was a mere jest compared to mine....

“I have purchased Stewart’s Philosophy to amuse me at sea. As you are in Edinburgh, you will write to me what people say of its religious character. You told me in Sandy’s (his brother Alexander presumably, who was at the time following the medical course he himself had just completed) letter that you would write me next week. I have too much to say, and therefore must speak by halves.

“The melancholy, who complain of the shortness of human life, and the voluptuous, who think the present only their own, strive to fill up every moment with sensual enjoyment; but the man whose soul has been enlightened by his Creator, and enabled, though dimly, to discern the wonders of salvation, will look upon the joys and afflictions of this life as equally the tokens of Divine love. He will walk through the world as one travelling to a better country, looking forward with wonder to the author and finisher of his faith....

“P.S.—I sail in about a month.”

EXTRACT OF LETTER FROM MUNGO PARK TO DR. ANDERSON.

It was in this buoyant mood of the young conqueror-to-be that Park looked forth upon the field of enterprise opened up to him, and with Stewart’s Philosophy to amuse him, and his deeply rooted religious convictions to sustain him, left England for the Indies.

As showing the force of these convictions, we may quote another letter, written to Dr. Anderson when on the point of departure:—

“I have now reached that height that I can behold the tumults of nations with indifference, confident that the reins of events are in our Father’s hands. May you and I (not like the stubborn mule, but like the weaning child) obey His hand, that after all the troubles of this dark world in which we are truly strangers, we may, through the wonders of atonement, reach a far greater and exceeding weight of glory. I wish you may be able to look upon the day of your departure with the same resignation that I do on mine. My hope is now approaching to a certainty. If I be deceived, may God alone put me right, for I would rather die in the delusion than wake to all the joys of earth. May the Holy Spirit dwell for ever in your heart, my dear friend, and if I never see my native land again, may I rather see the green sod on your grave than see you anything but a Christian.”

Nothing noteworthy marked this voyage to Sumatra, but his stay there was by no means wasted time, since it afforded him an excellent opportunity of indulging his scientific tastes, not as the collector merely, but also and chiefly as the accurate observer.

A paper in the Linnean Transactions on eight new fishes from Sumatra is sufficient evidence both of his industry and of his scientific attainments.

Park returned to England after a year’s absence, and was now ripe for the work in store for him. It nowhere appears that so far he had even once thought of Africa as a possible field for his ambition and energies. His natural temperament, however, had been a fertile soil for the romantic ideas which his early environment had planted. His medical education had further fitted him for the work of exploration, besides bringing him more sympathetically in contact with his botanical brother-in-law, who again was to bring him within the sphere of influence of Sir Joseph Banks, and through him of the African Association. Following these various determining influences came the first taste of travel, the wider experience, and the knowledge of the good and evil of the wanderer’s life. All that remained wanting was the golden opportunity to prove in action his potential capacity for heroic service in the fields of geographical research.

The return of Park from his first voyage was the turning point in his career. At the moment there was a crisis in the affairs of the African Association. Everything they had attempted had ended disastrously, and news had just reached them of the sad death of Major Houghton. Should the task now be given up, or was it to be resumed with renewed zeal and ardour? There could be but one answer. The work begun must be continued. Surely in the end it must be crowned with success. Meantime, who was to take it up?

While the Association was thus inquiring for the man fitted to entrust with their perilous venture, Park was still undecided as to what course in life he was to pursue. With Sir Joseph Banks as a link between, there could not fail to be a speedy understanding and a mutual settlement of the questions at issue for both. The projects of the Association speedily came to Park’s ears. Here was the very work he wanted, promising opportunities to indulge in his love of travel and natural history far transcending his wildest dreams. A splendid prospect of a great work accomplished and glory won, of difficulties surmounted and fame achieved, opened up before him. Before such a chance there could be no irresolution, no doubting, no fears. His course was clear, and at once he volunteered his services, which were, on the part of the Company, as promptly and eagerly accepted as they had been offered.

Mungo Park was then twenty-four years of age.

[CHAPTER VI.]
AT THE THRESHOLD.

On the 22nd of May 1795, Mungo Park left England on board the Endeavour, an African trader. On the 21st of the following month he landed at the mouth of the river Gambia.

Bathurst, the present seat of government for the Gambia basin, was not then in existence, with its present busy European community and thriving native population, its imposing public buildings and well laid out streets. The native town of Jillifri on the north bank, and a little way up the river, was the first place of call in the early trading days of the Gambia merchants.

From Jillifri the Endeavour ascended the river to Jonkakonda.

The view which opened up before Park as he proceeded was neither attractive nor promising. The river flowed seaward deep and muddy, its banks covered with impenetrable forests of mangrove, forming when the tide was out a horrible expanse of swamp. The air was thick with a sickening haze, charged with the poisonous exhalations from the fœtid mud engendered by heat and moisture. Here and there only, a group of cocoa-nuts, or an isolated bombyx (silk-cotton tree) relieved the dreary monotony, and gave a momentary pleasure to the eye.

Behind the mangrove swamps the country spread out in a level plain, “very generally covered with woods, and presenting a tiresome and gloomy uniformity to the eye; but although nature has denied to the inhabitants the beauties of romantic landscapes, she has bestowed on them with a liberal hand the more important blessings of fertility and abundance.”

At Jonkakonda, which seems to have been one of the chief trading stations on the river, Park left the Endeavour, and proceeded to the factory of Pisania, a few miles further on.

In Dr. Laidley, the agent in charge, for whom he brought letters, Park found not only a generous host, but also a thoroughly competent adviser, and for several succeeding months the merchant’s house and wide experience were alike at his disposal.

The objects to be attained by his expedition were—To reach the river Niger by such route as might be found most convenient; to ascertain its origin, course, and if possible its termination; to visit the chief towns in its neighbourhood, but more particularly Timbuktu and those of the Haussa country.

Park’s ardent enthusiasm was ever tempered with the caution and prudent practical character of his race. Like an old campaigner he set about learning what was ahead of him, and otherwise preparing for his difficult and dangerous task. The Mandingo language had to be acquired, that he might come into more sympathetic touch with the natives, and be more independent of interpreters, ever a source of profound danger, and often the greatest obstacle to the advance of the explorer into unknown countries. In addition inquiries had to be made regarding routes, the dangers to be avoided, and the general condition of travel in these parts. Without such information it was clear to him that he would be as a blind man walking in a country beset with a thousand pitfalls.

But while thus preparing for his task, Park was not oblivious to what was more immediately around. We get glimpses of him making natural history collections by day, and taking astronomical observations by night. In particular he occupied himself in getting up the details of the trade of the Gambia. Since the time when Stibbs had ascended the river in the vain hope of reaching the Niger, a considerable change had come over the commerce of the region. The fancied wealth of Timbuktu had not been tapped, but the commodities of the countries within reach of the river had proved no inconsiderable source of profit. In the year 1730 we find one factory alone consisting of a governor, deputy-governor, and two other principal officers; eight factors (hence the word factory) or trading agents, thirteen writers, twenty inferior attendants and tradesmen, a company of soldiers, and thirty-two negro servants, not to speak of the crews of various sloops, shallops, and boats. From that date, however, competition set in, till at the end of the century the gross value of British exports had fallen to £20,000.

It is worthy of note that even in Park’s time the chief article of export is slaves. Accustomed as we are in these days to denounce in the strongest terms this vile traffic, and to brand as the most degraded and brutal of their race those who engage in it, it is difficult to realise that less than a century ago we ourselves were the chief traffickers in human flesh and blood. How little this horrible trade touched the conscience of the individual or of the country at large is sufficiently shown by Park’s own narrative. We seek there in vain for a word of condemnation, or the indication of a consciousness that there was any iniquity in it. Not, be it noted, for lack of knowledge of the attendant cruelties or even through lack of pity for the victims. On the contrary, he describes “the poor wretches while waiting shipment kept constantly fettered two and two together, and employed in the labours of the field; and, I am sorry to add, very scantily fed, as well as harshly treated.”

Later on he accompanied a slave caravan on its way to the coast. With simple naturalness he tells the whole story of the horrors of the route, describing the fetters and chains, the frightful marches, with heavy loads, under a sweltering sun, and with starvation rations; the whip mercilessly applied to the weary to stimulate them to further exertions, and the knife placed to the throat of the hopelessly exhausted, at once to rid them of pain and their drivers of a burden—“an operation I did not wish to see, and therefore marched on.”

He is quite aware that all these horrors are perpetrated that a European market may be supplied. He knows also what has preceded the slave path, and yet, incredible as it may seem, not one indignant protest is drawn from him, not one appeal to Christian Europe, not even a word of commendation of the work already inaugurated for its suppression. Quite the opposite, in fact, on which point let Park speak for himself. “How far it (slavery) is maintained and supported by the slave traffic, which for two hundred years the nations of Europe have carried on with the natives of the coast, it is neither within my province nor in my power to explain. If my sentiments should be required concerning the effect which a discontinuance of that commerce would produce on the manners of the natives, I should have no hesitation in observing that in the present unenlightened state of their minds my opinion is, the effect would neither be so extensive or beneficial as many wise and worthy persons fondly expect.”

The wonder of the thing is intensified, to our mind, when we reflect on the deep religious nature of Park, his genuine kind-heartedness, his noble ambitions, and his appreciation of all that is sweet in human nature. The story is pregnant with meaning as to the influence of our environment in opening or shutting our eyes to what is going on around us.

But while Britain was then awakening to a sense of its guilt, and preparing to purge itself of the unholy traffic, we find from Park’s notes that a new trade, destined to have almost as terrible consequences, was already established. Europe, he tells us, took from the Gambia chiefly slaves, and gave in return spirits and ammunition. For over two hundred years the unfortunate natives of Africa had been treated as wild creatures, the lawful prey and spoil of the higher races. The mother was tempted to sell her child, and the chief his subjects. Village fought against village, and tribe against tribe, that American plantations might be tilled. As wild beasts and things accursed the negroes were shot down in myriads, in myriads they perished on the road, in myriads were transported to a life of shame and misery. And now, when a new order of things was about to be instituted, there had commenced another hundred years of disgraceful commerce to complete the work of brutalising the West Coast negro, of blighting all elevating impulses, and suppressing all habits of industry, transforming him into what he is to-day—the most villainous, treacherous, and vicious being to be found in all Africa.

Thanks to the slave trade in past centuries, and the gin traffic in the present, our West Coast Settlements, instead of being bright jewels in the imperial crown of Britain, are at this day little better than standing monuments to her disgrace. Happily the closing years of this century are showing signs of an awakened public conscience. Governments, companies, and private merchants alike are taking a higher view of their responsibilities to barbarous races, and before another half century has come and gone we may hope to see the vile monster badly scotched if not killed.

But while we gather from Park that in his day the slave trade was carried on by British merchants without a qualm of conscience, and that already gunpowder and gin formed the staple articles of barter for human flesh and blood, it is hardly less noteworthy that Islam was steadily making its beneficent influence felt throughout the whole land. He tells us that the inhabitants were divided into two great classes—the Sonakies or spirit drinkers, and the Bushreens or Mohammedans: the former, pagans sinking deeper and deeper in the scale of humanity under the degrading influence of European intercourse and commerce; the latter ever rising upward, adopting decent dress and decent behaviour, building mosques and establishing schools, and specially attempting to stem the flood of vile spirits poured into the country by Christian merchants.

We have in a previous chapter alluded to the mighty revolution produced by Islam in the Central Sudan. Here we are only at the missionary outposts. Further inland, as we follow the footsteps of Park, we shall see more and more of the good work Mohammedanism had accomplished in Central Africa.

Meanwhile it was not all study and observation with the young explorer. He had to go through a seasoning process of an unpleasant nature. Having on one occasion imprudently exposed himself to the night dew, he caught a fever, and while recovering had a second attack, which kept him a prisoner for some additional weeks.

Thanks to the care of Dr. Laidley no evil consequences followed, while “his company and conversation beguiled the tedious hours during that gloomy season (the rains): when suffocating heats oppress by day, and when the night is spent by the terrified traveller in listening to the croaking of frogs, of which the numbers are beyond imagination, the shrill cry of the jackal, and the deep howling of the hyena—a dismal concert interrupted only by the roar of such tremendous thunder as no person can form a conception of but those who have heard it.”

[CHAPTER VII.]
FROM THE GAMBIA TO THE SENEGAL.

The time had at last arrived for Park to start on his great undertaking.

In the beginning of October the Gambia had attained its greatest height, or fifteen feet above the high-water mark of the tide, and then had begun to subside rapidly, so that by the beginning of November the river had sunk to its normal level. This was the time to travel. The natives had reaped their crops, and food was cheap and plentiful. The rains were over, the land well drained and dried, the atmosphere less moist and oppressive—all of which circumstances combined to make travelling more agreeable and infinitely more healthy.

At first Park had hoped to accompany a native caravan going into the interior, but abandoned the idea on finding that he would have to wait an indefinite period for such an escort. He therefore determined to depend on his own resources rather than lose another good travelling season.

On the 2nd December 1795 he was ready for the road. Accustomed as we are to read of the huge caravans, the quantities of goods, stores, ammunition, and instruments required by exploring expeditions to the heart of Africa in these degenerate days, we cannot but be surprised at the modest retinue and scanty impedimenta which Park thought necessary for his great task. His sole attendants were a negro servant named Johnson, who had been to Jamaica as a slave, but being freed had returned to his native country; and Demba, a slave boy belonging to Dr. Laidley, who, besides Mandingo, spoke the language of one of the inland tribes.

As beasts of burden Park had a small but hardy and spirited horse for himself, and two donkeys for his servants. As baggage he had provisions for two days; a small assortment of beads, amber, and tobacco for the purchase of fresh supplies as needed; a few changes of linen and other necessary articles of dress; an umbrella, a pocket sextant, a magnetic compass, and a thermometer. For defensive purposes he was provided with two fowling-pieces, two pairs of pistols, and some other small weapons. Thus attended, thus provided, and thus armed, Mungo Park started for the Heart of Africa—an uncertain bourne only to be reached through deadly perils and frightful miseries and hardships. How splendidly equipped he must have been with the real necessaries of the hero—unflinching determination, ardent enthusiasm, Homeric resolve, and absolute self-reliance. Thus provided with moral weapons and stimulants he could rise superior to every difficulty and danger, and emerge from the unequal struggle uncrushed, undefeated, bearing with him not all, but much of the prize for which he had staked life itself.

Besides Johnson and Demba, Park had the advantage of the company of a Mohammedan on his way to Bambarra, two slatees or slave-merchants going to Bondou, and a blacksmith returning home to Kasson.

For the first two marches Dr. Laidley and two other Europeans accompanied him on his way, feeling as if they were performing the last offices for the dead, for they never expected to see him again.

On the 3rd of December he took leave of these kind friends, and turned his face inland towards the east and the Unknown. As he rode slowly into the woods, after breaking the last link which connected him with Europe and civilisation, and took the road so lately traversed by Major Houghton, he could not but recall that to the latter it had been a road to death. Before him rose up pictures of repellent waterless deserts, of trackless jungles, gloomy primeval forests, and miasmatic marshes which had to be penetrated before his eyes would rest upon the river Niger. Only too clearly he saw the dangers from man and beast which had to be faced before he could ever hope to get once more in touch with European civilisation. “Thoughts like these necessarily cast a gloom over the mind, and I rode musingly along for about three miles, when I was awakened from my reverie by a body of people who came running up and stopped my asses.” And with his reflections thus broken by one of the innumerable annoyances of African travel, they were not again resumed.

For the first few marches there was little to note either in incidents of travel or in aspects of man and nature. The scenery was pleasant, though but slightly varied—gentle wooded acclivities everywhere, alternating with cultivated interspaces surrounding towns and villages. The inhabitants were Mandingoes, untroubled by the trammels of clothes, Pagans for the most part, and confirmed spirit drinkers; the rest Mohammedans, respectable in character, decent in dress and behaviour, lovers of education and religion, haters of strong drink.

By both divisions of the community Park was hospitably received, and treated to such simple fare and lodging as they themselves possessed. With daily practice the fatigues of the way became less harassing, while a keen appetite, and the knowledge that absolutely nothing else was to be had, made otherwise coarse food seem palatable. Gradually a new standard of comfort was formed on a scale proportionate to present possibilities, so that at length positive enjoyment could be got out of both food and lodging which previously would have been deemed repulsive and miserable.

From the district of Walli Park entered that of Wuli. At Medina, the capital of the latter, he was received kindly by the king, who strongly dissuaded him from proceeding further east into countries where the white man was unknown, and where the fate of Houghton might be his. But Park was not to be discouraged, seeing which the king provided him with a guide to take him on his way.

From Medina the route diverged from the Gambia, and passed E.N.E. towards the Senegal. For some days nothing special characterised the march. Everywhere, however, the explorer gets interesting glimpses of the life and ways of the natives, of their genius for story-telling and their forensic skill, or of their love of wrestling, an art in which they are such adepts that he “thinks that few Europeans would have been able to cope with the conqueror.”

At one place he finds that the men have a curious way of administering disciplinary punishment to troublesome wives.

Evidently in the huge feminine establishments of the Mandingo husband the ordinary human hand is unable to keep the women in due subjection and order. The unfortunate husband with trouble in the house, and afraid to tackle the offender or offenders in the ordinary manner, has recourse to underhand ways. In every village a masquerading dress is kept for the use of Mumbo Jumbo, a mysterious person whose business it is to seek out and punish wayward wives. When a husband finds matters becoming too hot for him in his household, he secretly possesses himself of this dress and disappears into the woods. At nightfall frightful noises are heard near the town—the signal that Mumbo Jumbo is abroad. Terror falls upon every mutinous and erring member of the frail yet troublesome sex, for no one knows on whom the rod shall descend. None, however, dare to disobey the summons, for now they have to deal with the devil himself, backed up by all the male powers of the village. For the men the occasion is a joyous one—though not so for the women. All hurry to the meeting-place to take part in the proceedings, and unite in the active assertion of marital authority. But the victim is not immediately pounced upon. The terrors and uncertainties of conscious backsliders must be endured for hours, cloaked beneath a well-simulated air of innocence and careless gaiety. The time is spent in songs and dances, as if to celebrate the coming detection of the rebel and the triumph of order and the principle of masculine rule. About midnight the witch-like revelry ceases, and a frost of uneasy silence falls upon the female throng. Who is to be the victim? The next moment the question is practically answered, as one of the number is seized, stripped naked, tied to a post, and severely scourged amid the applause of the crowd, loudest among whom are the ninety and nine other women, each of whom a moment before had thought herself a possible sufferer.

A similar spirit is not unknown in our own country and times.

On the 11th December Mungo Park, without mishap or discouragement, had reached Kujar, the frontier town of Wuli, to the east.

Between Wuli and Bondou, the next country, there lay a waterless wilderness, two days’ march in extent. The guide from the King of Wuli had here to return, and his place was taken by three elephant hunters.

At Kujar, Park found himself examined with an increased curiosity and reverence, indicating a much less degree of familiarity with the white man.

On the 12th the party started for the passage of the wilderness, minus one of the guides, who had absconded with the money he had received in advance. Before proceeding far the two remaining guides insisted on stopping till they had ensured a safe journey by preparing a charm which would divert all danger from them. The charm was simple enough, and consisted in muttering a few sentences over a stone, which was afterwards spat upon and thrown in the direction of travel—a process repeated three times.

At midday the little party of travellers reached a tree, called by the natives Neema Faba, which was hung all over with offerings of rags and scraps of cloth to propitiate the evil spirit of the place. This practice prevails throughout the length and breadth of savage Africa, though Park appears to have mistaken its meaning, and thinking it due to the desire of travellers to indicate that water was near, followed their example by hanging on one of the boughs a handsome piece of cloth. At the neighbouring pool, where they had proposed to camp, signs of a recently extinguished fire made them suspicious of the vicinity of robbers, and they therefore pushed ahead to the next well, which they did not reach till eight in the evening.

For the first time the dangers and difficulties of his journey were brought vividly home to Park when after a hard day’s work he and his party had to lie out in the open, on the bare ground, surrounded by their animals, and had to keep strict watch and ward for possible attack. With daylight they filled their water-skins and calabashes and set out for Falika, the western frontier town of Bondou, which they reached before midday.

In Bondou, Park found new aspects of nature and other races of men.

For fertility the land was unsurpassed. Lying on the parting ridge between the Gambia and the Senegal, it was better drained than the country left behind, a fact evidenced by the appearance of the mimosa. Towards the east it rose into ranges of hills.

Far different, too, were the Fulah inhabitants. A tawny complexion, small, well-shaped features, and soft, silky hair, distinguished them at a glance from the negro races around them. Among them Mohammedanism was the prevailing religion, though not by any means exercised intolerantly, “for the system of Mahomet is made to extend itself by means abundantly more efficacious. By establishing schools in the different towns, where many of the Pagan as well as Mohammedan children are taught to read the Koran, and instructed in the tenets of the Prophet, the Mohammedan priests fix a bias on the mind and form the character of their young disciples which no accidents of life can ever afterwards remove or alter.” Of which latter fact let our Christian missionaries take note, and if possible learn a lesson therefrom.

This remarkable race did not originally belong to Bondou. Further south they were in even greater force, though scattered in more or less independent communities from Lake Chad to the Atlantic, a fact destined, after Park’s time, to have the most important bearing upon the history of the whole of the Western and Central Sudan.

Everywhere Park found the Fulahs remarkable for their industry, and no less successful in agriculture than in pastoral pursuits, which seem to have been their original speciality. In their hands Bondou developed a degree of wealth unknown in neighbouring states. Its prosperity, however, was also in great measure due to its being on the chief highway of the commerce from the interior to the coast, considerable duties being levied on all merchandise passing through it.

At Falika, Park secured the services of an officer of the King of Bondou as guide as far as Fatticonda, the capital.

On resuming their journey a violent quarrel broke out between two of Park’s companions, which would probably have ended in bloodshed, but for the interference of the white man, and his determined threat that he would shoot down the first who again drew sword—an ultimatum which had the desired effect. The rest of the march was accomplished in sullen silence, till a good supper terminated all heart-burnings, and animosities were forgotten under the influence of the diverting stories and sweet harmonies of an itinerant musician.

On the 15th the party crossed the Nereko, a considerable branch of the Gambia, and stayed for the night at Kurkarany, a walled town provided with a mosque. Four days later they crossed a dry stony height covered with mimosas, and entered the basin of the Senegal.

They were now more within the sphere of influence of French traders, who, as Park soon saw, had succeeded with characteristic genius in suiting the taste of the ladies of the country. These he found dressed in a thin French gauze, admirably adapted for the hot climate, and rendered dear to its wearers by the manner in which it displayed and heightened their charms. Their manners proved to be as irresistible as their dress, so that Park found it impossible to withstand their appeals for amber, beads, and other bits of showy finery. Having despoiled him of all he had, these “sturdy beggars” tore his cloak, cut the buttons from his servant’s clothes, and were proceeding to other outrages, when finding this more than his gallantry could stand, he mounted his horse and fled, leaving them disconsolate, but with abundant souvenirs.

Next day the Falemé, a turbulent tributary of the Senegal, was reached. The natives were actively engaged fishing, and the country around was covered with large and beautiful fields of millet.

It was not without apprehension that Park on the 21st December entered Fatticonda, the capital of Bondou. His predecessor Houghton had here been plundered and badly used, and he had every reason to fear a similar fate. But the situation was not to be evaded, so he braced himself up as best he might to face whatever was in store for him.

On entering the town, he and his party took up their station at the Palaver House or Bentang, as is the fashion of strangers, who thus make known their necessities, and mutely appeal for a night’s lodging. They had not long to wait before a respectable slatee invited them to his house.

An hour afterwards a messenger came to conduct the traveller to the king. Finding himself led out of the town, Park began to fear a trap, but was reassured on being shown the king sitting under a tree, and hearing that such was his way of giving a private audience. The stranger’s statement that he was no trader, and that he only travelled from motives of curiosity, was received with incredulity.

In the evening Park proceeded to make a more formal call. First, however, he concealed some of his goods in the roof of the hut, and donned his best coat, hoping thus to save them from the possible plundering he might be subjected to.

The king’s quarters were found to be converted into a species of citadel by a high mud wall, having a number of inner courts, each court containing several huts. After threading a series of intricate passages guarded by armed sentinels, the king, Almami, was at last reached. Again he showed himself but half satisfied with the white man’s explanations of the object of his visit. The idea of travelling merely to gratify curiosity was too new to his experience. It seemed the fancy of a madman. The presents offered put him in good humour, however, in particular the gift of a large umbrella.

As Park was about to take his leave, Almami stopped him, and commenced a eulogium of the generosity and immense wealth of the white men. From the general he came down to the particular, and had much that was flattering to say of his guest for the time being—a praise soon directed pointedly to the traveller’s handsome coat and shining buttons, until at length it became clear to its owner that it was not only admired but coveted. There was nothing for it but to take the coat off and lay it at the feet of the wily monarch, who did his best to console the giver by declaring that henceforth the garment should be his state dress for all great occasions.

For once Park’s caution had overreached its object.

Next morning the traveller visited by request the wives of Almami. He found himself surrounded by a dozen young and handsome women, decorated with gold and amber, who clamoured for physic and beads, and to have some blood taken from them. They rallied him upon the whiteness of his skin, which they said was due to his having been dipped in milk when an infant; and on the prominence of his nose, which they declared had been pinched into that shape by his mother. Park was equal to the occasion. He had compliments for all of them. The glossy jet of their skin and the contours of their retroussé noses, the bright glitter of their eyes and brilliant whiteness of their teeth were alike praised. This delicate flattery, with the addition of some bloodletting and a quantity of drastic medicine, was irresistible; and, though Park does not say so, undoubtedly the good impression he left behind among the ladies contributed materially to his immunity from the fate of his predecessor. Not only was he not plundered, but his baggage was not even searched. Still better, Almami on parting gave him five drachms of gold.

On the 23rd the traveller resumed his journey in the best of spirits after his unexpectedly good reception. At mid-day a halt was called for rest and refreshment, by way of preparation for the passage of the dangerous district lying between Bondou and the next country, Kajaaga, which it would be necessary to traverse under cover of night.

As soon as the people of the village were asleep, the donkeys were reloaded, and as silently as possible, so as not to disturb the villagers, the party passed out into the wilderness. The moon was shining brightly, illumining their way. The air was perfectly still, raising neither sigh nor rustle from leaf or bough. The deep solitudes of the forest were undisturbed save by the solemn impressive howling of wild beasts, and shrieks and hoots of night-birds which mingled discordantly with the deafening musical uproar of myriad insects, and the clutter of innumerable frogs. Except in whispers, not a word was uttered. Every one was on the alert, at times guiding the animals, more often peering ahead, or to right and left, on the lookout for possible robbers. Happily no human enemies appeared, though many were the alarms, as from time to time an unusual sound, or the vaguely descried figure of a prowling hyena, made each man seize his gun with a firmer grasp. Towards morning a village was reached where the little party were enabled to rest themselves and their animals before entering in the afternoon the country of Kajaaga.

[CHAPTER VIII.]
ACROSS THE SENEGAL BASIN.

The further Park proceeded east the drier and purer became the climate, and the more interesting the landscape. In Kajaaga, lying between the Falemé and the Senegal, he found a country everywhere interspersed with a pleasing variety of hills and valleys, to which the serpentine windings of the Senegal descending from the rocky heights gave both picturesqueness and beauty. The inhabitants, unlike the Fulahs, were jet black in complexion, resembling in this respect the Joloffs nearer the coast.

The people of Kajaaga are known as Serawulies, and are noted for their keen trading propensities—at this time chiefly directed towards supplying slaves to the British factories on the Gambia.

On the 24th December Park entered Joag, the western frontier town, and was there hospitably received by the chief man of the place, officially known as Dooty or Duté. The town was surrounded by a high mud wall, as was also every individual private establishment. Though the headman and the principal inhabitants were Mohammedans, it appeared that the great mass of the people were still Pagans, as was sufficiently shown by the nature of their wild night revelries—“the ladies in their dances vying with each other in displaying the most voluptuous movements imaginable.”

Park’s trials were now about to commence. During the night a number of horsemen arrived, and after talking with the host, took up their quarters in the Palaver House beside the traveller himself. Thinking the latter was asleep, one of them attempted to steal his gun, but finding he could not effect his purpose undiscovered, he desisted from the attempt. This, however, was but a foretaste of coming trouble. It was easy to see that Johnson was growing very uneasy at the aspect of affairs; not without cause either, as very soon became evident. Two of Park’s companions, who had been at a dance in a neighbouring village, came in with the news that a party of the king’s horsemen had been heard inquiring if the white man had passed, and on being told that he was at Joag, had immediately galloped off in that direction.

Even while they were speaking the horsemen arrived, and next moment Park found himself surrounded by some twenty soldiers, each carrying a musket. Resistance was useless; he could only wait in much anxiety to hear his fate.

At length, after a brief interval, a member of the party, who was loaded with an enormous number of charms to ward off all forms of evil, opened their business in a long harangue. The white man, they said, had violated the laws of the country by entering it without paying the customary duties, and had accordingly forfeited everything he possessed. The soldiers had orders to take him to the king by force if necessary.

Conceive the position Park was now in. Utter ruin stared him in the face, and the collapse of all his cherished schemes. To fight was out of the question. All he could do was to try to gain a little time to think matters out, and seek the advice of his companions and host. They were unanimous in declaring that it would be disastrous to him to accompany the horsemen. A long argument with the spokesman ensued, by dint of which, and the present of Almami’s five drachms of gold, the messenger became somewhat mollified.

They demanded, however, to be shown the baggage, from which they helped themselves to whatever they happened to fancy; and having thus despoiled their victim of half his goods, they left him to his gloomy reflections and an indifferent supper after a day of fast.

Thus reduced in his already scanty resources, and his power to travel correspondingly limited, Park found but Job’s comforters in his companions. One and all they urged him to turn back from his hopeless task. Johnson, especially, laughed at the very idea of proceeding further, miserably provided as they were. But the spirit of the leader rose superior to his misfortunes, and he never for a moment admitted the idea of retreat. While strength remained there could be no flinching from his task. Yet his thoughts were gloomy enough that night as he sat reviewing his situation through the hours of darkness by the side of a smouldering fire. Morning brought no improvement to his position. The scanty supper was followed by no breakfast.

What few articles still remained dared not be produced, lest they too should be plundered. It was resolved, therefore, to pass the day without food, trusting to Providence for a stray meal sooner or later.

As the day wore on the pangs of hunger began to make themselves felt. To allay this in some measure the unfortunate travellers chewed straws, a make-believe yielding as scant comfort as it did sustenance. But Park’s faith in God was not belied. Towards evening an old female slave passed by with a basket on her head, and struck by his woe-begone, famished look, she asked him if he had had his dinner. Thinking she spoke in jest, he did not reply. Not so his boy Demba, who volubly, and with the eloquence of suffering, told the story of their misfortunes and their needs. In a moment the old woman had her basket on the ground, and a plentiful supply of ground-nuts was placed in their hands, the donor thereafter marching away without waiting for a word of thanks.

Further good fortune was now in store for them. It happened that Demba Sego Jalla, the Mandingo king of Kasson further east, had sent his nephew to the King of Kajaaga to try to arrange some disputes which were threatening to lead to war. The embassy, however, had met with no success. Returning homeward, the king’s nephew had heard of there being a white man at Joag who was desirous of visiting Kasson, and curiosity brought him to see the stranger. On hearing Park’s story, the young noble offered him his protection all the way—an offer that was eagerly and gratefully accepted.

Thus guided and protected, Park set out for Kasson on the 27th. Some distance on the way Johnson, in spite of his life in Jamaica and his seven years’ residence in England, showed that he still was saturated with the superstitious ideas of his youth by producing a white chicken and tying it by the leg to a particular tree as an offering to the spirits of the woods. The same belief in nature spirits has already been alluded to in a previous chapter. Anthropologists tell us that it must at one time have been universal, and evidences of it are found not only in the charming legends of the Greeks, with their nymphs of meadow, grove, and spring, and dryads growing with the oaks and pines, but also in our own Anglo-Saxon words.

In the evening the party safely arrived at Sami, on the banks of the Senegal. Park describes the sister river to the Gambia as being at this point a beautiful but shallow stream, flowing slowly over a bed of sand and gravel. The banks are high and covered with verdure, and are backed by an open cultivated country, the distant hills of Felow and Bambuk adding an additional beauty to the landscape. A few miles below Sami was the former French trading station of St. Joseph, founded by Sieur Brue, but abandoned in the time of Park. Next morning the party proceeded a little further up the river to Kayi, where they crossed with no small difficulty and danger, the animals being swum over, and the baggage conveyed in a miserable canoe.

While Park was crossing by the same means the canoe was capsized by an injudicious movement on the part of his protector, but being near the bank, no harm came of it, and a second attempt landed him safely in the country of Kasson.

The young noble, having once brought the white traveller into his own country, soon showed that no generous motives had prompted his assistance. Unhesitatingly he demanded a handsome present. Park, seeing that it was useless either to upbraid or to complain, with a heavy heart made the necessary selection from his scanty stock of goods, and presented the offering forthwith.

On the evening of the 29th the party reached Tisi, where Park was lodged with his protector’s father, Tiggity Sego, the head man of the place. Next morning a slave having run away, the use of Park’s horse was asked for the chase, to which he “readily consented, and in about an hour they all returned with the slave, who was severely flogged, and afterwards put in irons.”

Park was detained for several days at Tisi, while his horse was further used by his host on a more extended mission. During his enforced detention our traveller had an opportunity of seeing a somewhat more drastic method of propagating Islam than any he had yet witnessed. An embassy of ten persons arrived from the King of Futa Larra, a country to the west of Bondou, and announced to the assembled inhabitants that unless all the people of Kasson embraced the Mohammedan religion, and evinced their conversion by saying solemn public prayers, he, the King of Futa Larra, would certainly join his arms to those of Kajaaga.

Such a coalition would have been disastrous to Kasson, and without a moment’s hesitation the conversion was agreed to. Accordingly, one and all did as was desired, offering up solemn prayers in token that they were no longer Pagans, but followers of Mohammed.

It was not till the 8th of January 1796 that Demba Sego, the young noble, returned with the traveller’s horse, whereupon Park, impatient at the delay, declared that he could spend no more time at Tisi, and must proceed to the capital. He was informed he could not do so until he had paid the customary trading duties. Some amber and tobacco were offered, but they were laid aside as totally inadequate for a present to a man of Tiggity Sego’s importance. Once more Park had to submit to seeing his baggage ransacked. One-half he had already lost at Joag, and now half of what remained had to be similarly sacrificed to satisfy the rapacity of his tormentors.

Thus despoiled, Park was permitted to depart next morning. His course, which so far had been E.N.E., was now E.S.E. In the afternoon the party arrived at the village of Jumbo, the birthplace of the blacksmith who had faithfully accompanied Park from Pisania. The entire population turned out to welcome back their townsman with dance and songs. The poor fellow’s meeting with his blind mother was most touching. Unable to see him, she stretched out her arms to welcome him, and after eagerly satisfying herself by touch of face and hands that it was indeed her son who had returned, she gave wild expression to her delight. From which Park concludes, “that whatever differences there are between the Negro and the European in the conformation of the nose and the colour of the skin, there is none in the genuine sympathies and characteristic feelings of our common nature.”

This affectionate welcome over, the villagers had time to turn their attention to the white man. At first they looked or affected to look upon him as a being dropped from the clouds, the women and children shrinking from him half in fear, half in awe. On being assured by their countryman that he was a good-tempered and inoffensive creature, they gradually laid aside their misgivings, and began to feel the texture of his clothes, and assure themselves that he was indeed cast in much the same mould as themselves. Still his slightest movement was sufficient to arouse their tremors and make them scamper off like a flock of sheep which had valorously marched up to view a sleeping dog.

Next day Park continued his journey to a place called Sulu, where he had an order from Dr. Laidley on a slatee for the value of five slaves. Hardly had he been hospitably received by Dr. Laidley’s client, when messengers arrived from Kuniakary with orders that he should proceed at once to the king. Thither accordingly he journeyed, arriving late in the evening.

The rule of “like master, like man” did not hold good in relation to the King of Kasson and such of his subordinates as Park so far had come in contact with. His reception by one whose “success in war and the mildness of his behaviour in times of peace had much endeared him to his subjects,” was an agreeable variation to the hard fate which had lately dogged his footsteps. The king was not only satisfied with his visitor’s story and his poor present, but promised him every assistance in his power. He warned him, however, that the road to Bambarra was for the time being rendered extremely dangerous, if not altogether impassable, by the outbreak of war between that state and the adjoining one of Kaarta. In the hope of the arrival of more reassuring news Park waited four days, staying the while with the Sulu slatee, from whom he received gold dust to the value of three slaves. This transaction coming to the ears of the king, Park was compelled to add considerably to the value of his former present.

The country around Sulu presented an enchanting prospect of simple rural plenty, while the scenery surpassed in richness and variety any Park had yet seen. The density of the population was illustrated by the fact that the King of Kasson could raise within sound of his great war drum an army of four thousand fighting men. The one drawback to the amenities of the place was the numerous bands of wolves and hyenas which nightly attacked the cattle, and were only to be driven off by organised parties of men with fires and torches.

From Sulu, Park proceeded S.E. up the rocky valley of the Kriko, meeting everywhere swarms of people leaving the expected seat of war in Kaarta.

On the 8th he left the charming valley of the Kriko, and travelled over a rough stony country to the ridge of hills which forms the boundary-line between Kasson and Kaarta. Thence his way lay down a stony precipitous path into the dried-up bed of a stream, whose overarching trees afforded to the wayfarer a grateful shade. Emerging from this romantic glen, the party found itself on the level sandy plains of Kaarta, having the hilly ranges of Fuludu on their right.

On the third day from Sulu, Park witnessed a new method of consulting the Oracle as to the fate in store for them on the road. To his great alarm, their guide, who was a Mohammedan in name and a Pagan at heart, came to an abrupt standstill in a dark lonely part of a wood. Taking a hollow piece of bamboo he whistled very loud three times. Thereafter he dismounted, laid his spear across the pathway, and again whistled thrice. For a short time he listened as if for an answer, and receiving none, told Park that now they might proceed, for the way was clear of danger.

Next day the superstitious ideas cherished by the natives were further illustrated. Park had wandered some distance from his party, when, just as he reached the brow of a slight eminence, a couple of negro horsemen galloped from the bushes. Immediately on seeing each other Park and the negroes alike came to an abrupt stop, each equally filled with alarm. The white man was the first to regain his presence of mind, and concluding that advance was his safer course, he moved towards them. This was too much for the terrified natives, who thought they saw in the strange figure before them some terrible spirit. One of them, with a wild look of horror, turned and fled; the other, paralysed beyond action, could only cover his eyes and mutter his prayers. In this position he would have remained stationary, but for the instinct of his horse, which led him to follow his companion.

On the afternoon of the 12th, Park and his party entered the capital of Kaarta. On announcing their arrival to the king, a messenger was sent to convey them to a hut and protect them from the inquisitive crowd. In carrying out the latter part of his commission the messenger signally failed, and for the rest of the afternoon our explorer remained on exhibition, the hut being filled and emptied thirteen times by an admiring and curious mob.

In the evening his majesty gave Park an audience, seated on a clay divan raised a couple of feet above the floor, and covered with a leopard’s skin, the sign of authority. The way to the throne lay through a long lane formed by a huge crowd of fighting men on the one side, and of women and children on the other.

The reception of the stranger was highly encouraging. He was told, however, that he had chosen a most inopportune time to attempt to pass into Bambarra, and he was advised to return to Kasson, and there await the end of the war just commencing. That, however, meant the loss of the dry season, and Park dreaded the thought of spending the rainy season in the interior. “These considerations, and the aversion I felt at the idea of returning without having made a greater progress in discovery, made me determined to go forward.”

Hearing this determination, the king showed his kindly intentions by pointing out that there was another—though a more dangerous and circuitous route—to Bambarra, namely, that by way of Ludamar, an Arab district to the north-west of Kaarta. At the same time he promised to give the white man guides for this route as far as Jarra, his frontier town. With this offer Park only too gladly closed.

Before the audience ended a horseman arrived in foaming haste to announce that the Bambarra army had left Fuludu for Kaarta.

Next morning, after Park had sent his horse-pistols and holsters as a present to his royal host, a large escort was provided to protect and lead him on his way to Ludamar.