The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa, in the Year 1805. Mungo Park
the assistance of their distinguished Associate, Major Rennell, they were now proceeding to trace the principal geographical outlines of Northern Africa; and were endeavouring to ascertain the course of the great inland river Joliba or Niger, and to obtain some authentic information concerning Tombuctoo, a principal city of the interior and one of the great marts of African commerce.
In the course of these enquiries, the Association, since their first establishment in 1788, had employed several persons, well qualified for such undertakings, upon missions into various parts of the African Continent. Several of these were known to have perished, either as victims of the climate, or in contests with the natives; [Footnote: The persons who had been sent out prior to this period, were Mr. Ledyard, Mr. Lucas, Major Houghton, and Mr. Horneman: subsequently to which, several others have been employed; viz. Mr. Nichols, Mr. Bourcard, &c.] and intelligence had lately been received of the death of Major Houghton, who had been sent out to explore the course of the Niger, and to penetrate, if possible, to Tombuctoo and Houssa. The Association appear to have found considerable difficulty in supplying Major Houghton's place; and had made known their readiness to give a liberal compensation to any person, competently qualified, who might be willing to proceed on this important and arduous mission.
The attention of Park was naturally drawn to this subject, in consequence of his connection with Sir Joseph Banks, who had received him with great kindness and cordiality on his return from the East Indies, and with whom he was now in habits of frequent intercourse. Sir Joseph Banks was one of the most active and leading members of the African Association, and with his accustomed zeal for the promotion of scientific discovery, was earnest in his endeavours to find out a proper person to undertake the mission in search of the Niger. There was nothing in Park's previous studies which had particularly led him towards geographical pursuits; but he had a general passion for travelling; he was in the full vigour of life; his constitution had been in some degree inured to hot climates; he saw the opportunities which a new country would afford of indulging his taste for Natural History: nor was he insensible to the distinction which was likely to result from any great discoveries in African geography. These considerations determined him. Having fully informed himself as to what was expected by the Association, he eagerly offered himself for the service; and after some previous enquiry into his qualifications, the offer was readily accepted.
Between the time of Park's return from India in 1793, and his departure to Africa, an interval elapsed of about two years. During the whole of this period (with the exception of a short visit to Scotland in 1794), he appears to have resided in London or its neighbourhood; being engaged partly in his favourite studies, or in literary or scientific society; but principally in acquiring the knowledge and making the preparations, which were requisite for his great undertaking.
Having received his final instructions from the African Association, he set sail from Portsmouth on the 22d of May, 1795, on board the Endeavour, an African trader, bound for the Gambia, where he arrived on the 21st of the following month. It is not the intention of this narrative to follow him through the details of this journey, a full account of which was afterwards published by Park, and is familiar to every reader. But it may be useful to mention the material dates and some of the principal transactions.
Having landed on the 21st of June at Jillifree, a small town near the mouth of the River Gambia; he proceeded shortly afterwards to Pisania, a British factory about 200 miles up the same river, where he arrived on the 5th of July, and was most hospitably received by Dr. Laidley, a gentleman who had resided many years at that settlement. He remained at Dr. Laidley's house for several months, in order to learn the Mandingo language, which is in general use throughout that part of Africa, and also to collect information concerning the countries he intended to visit. During two of these months he was confined by a severe fever, caught by imprudently exposing himself during the rainy season.
He left Pisania on the 2d of December, 1795, directing his course easterly, with a view of proceeding to the River Joliba, or Niger. But in consequence of a war between two sovereigns in the Interior, he was obliged, after he had made some progress, to take a northerly direction towards the territory of the Moors. He arrived at Jarra, the frontier town of that country, on the 18th of February, 1796. Pursuing his journey from thence, he was taken and detained as a prisoner, by Ali, the chieftain or king of that territory, on the 7th of March; and after a long captivity and a series of unexampled hardships, escaped at last with great difficulty early in the month of July.
The period was now approaching when he was to receive some compensation for so many sufferings. After wandering in great misery for about three weeks through the African Wilderness, he arrived at Sego, the capital of Bambarra, a city which is said to contain thirty thousand inhabitants. He was gratified at the same time by the first sight of the Niger, the great object of his journey; and ascertained the extraordinary fact, that its course is from West to East.
After a short stay at Sego (where he did not find it safe to remain), Park proceeded down the river to Silla, a large town distant about seventy or eighty miles, on the banks of the Niger. He was now reduced to the greatest distress, and being convinced by painful experience, that the obstacles to his further progress were insurmountable, he reluctantly abandoned his design of proceeding eastwards; and came to the resolution of going back to Sego, and endeavouring to effect his return to the Gambia by a different route from that by which he had advanced into Africa.
On the 3d of August, 1796, he left Silla, and pursuing the course of the Niger, arrived at Bammakoo, the frontier of Bambarra, about the 23d of the same month. Here he quitted the Niger, which ceases to be navigable at this place; and travelling for several weeks through a mountainous and difficult country, reached Kamalia, in the territory of Manding, on the 16th of September. He performed the latter part of this journey on foot, having been obliged to leave his horse, now worn out with fatigue and unable to proceed farther.
Having encountered all the horrors of the rainy season, and being worn down by fatigue, his health had, at different times, been seriously affected. But, soon after his arrival at Kamalia, he fell into a severe and dangerous fit of sickness, by which he was closely confined for upwards of a month. His life was preserved by the hospitality and benevolence of Karfa Taura, a Negro, who received him into his house, and whose family attended him with the kindest solicitude. The same excellent person, at the time of Park's last Mission into Africa, hearing that a white man was travelling through the country, whom he imagined to be Park, took a journey of six days to meet him; and joining the caravan at Bambakoo, was highly gratified by the sight of his friend. [Footnote: See Journal, p. 137.]
There being still a space of five hundred miles to be traversed (the greater part of it through a desert) before Park could reach any friendly country on the Gambia, he had no other resource but to wait with patience for the first caravan of slaves that might travel the same track. No such opportunity occurred till the latter end of April, 1797; when a coffle, or caravan, set out from Kamalia under the direction of Karfa Taura, in whose house he had continued during his long residence of more than seven months at that place.
The coffle began its progress westwards on the 17th of April, and on the 4th of June reached the banks of the Gambia, after a journey of great labour and difficulty, which afforded Park the most painful opportunities of witnessing the miseries endured by a caravan of slaves in their transportation from the interior to the coast. On the 10th of the same month Park arrived at Pisania, from whence he had set out eighteen months before; and was received by Dr. Laidley (to use his own expression) as one risen from the grave. On the 15th of June he embarked in a slave ship bound to America, which was driven by stress of weather to the West Indies; and got with great difficulty, and under circumstances of considerable danger, into the Island of Antigua. He sailed from thence on the 24th of November, and after a short, but tempestuous passage, arrived at Falmouth on the 22d of the following month, having been absent from England two years and seven months.
Immediately on his landing he hastened to London, anxious in the greatest degree about his family and friends, of whom he had heard nothing for two years. He arrived in London before day-light on the morning of Christmas day, 1797; and it being too early an hour to go to his brother-in-law, Mr. Dickson, he wandered for some time about the streets in that quarter of the town where his house was. Finding one of the entrances into the gardens of the British Museum accidentally