Mungo Park and the Niger

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...

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 bound...

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 Mohamme...

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 f...

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...

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.

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 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...

It must have been with no pleasant sensations that Park turned aside from his direct route E.S.E. to the Niger, and proceeded north instead to Ludamar. In addition to the increa...

In the eyes of the degenerate Arabs of Ludamar he was an object detestable both to God and man--a Christian and a spy. Everything, therefore, that savage ingenuity could invent...

Once outside the village, it behoved Park to be on the alert, and get as quickly from the vicinity of the Moors as possible. With his horse reduced to skin and bone speed was ou...

Thus was the River Niger for the first time reached by an European, and its eastward course determined. Park had left England inclined if anything to believe that it flowed west...

Park’s resolution to return to the coast was taken on the 29th July 1796. His hope of accomplishing this purpose in safety seemed almost as desperate as the task of going forwar...

Park had now entered the country of Manding. Sibidulu, from its position in a small valley surrounded by high rocky hills impassable to horsemen, had had the singular good fortu...

In the second week of April the Mohammedans of Kamalia were on the alert for the expected appearance of the new moon, which would terminate their month of fasting. On the evenin...

At Malacotta, Park could look forward with a considerable degree of confidence to his safe return to the coast. He was once more within the sphere of influence of coast trade, w...

Once landed at Falmouth, Park lost no time in proceeding to London. In those days there was no telegraph to apprise the world of his arrival, nor newspaper reporters to intervie...

After the publication of his narrative there was nothing to detain Park longer in London, while there was much to attract him to Scotland. Accordingly he returned to Foulshiels...

He arrived in London only to hear that the departure of the expedition had been postponed till the end of February 1804. With what patience he possessed he waited. The allotted...

In crossing the Bay of Biscay they were considerably detained by storms and contrary winds, so that it took five weeks to reach their primary destination. From St. Jago, where f...

Park in his letter home was careful only to look backward: it is now our business to accompany him forward, and see what happened as he passed across the Senegal basin on his wa...

Writing home on the 29th of May, Park, calculating from his rate of progress so far, predicted that he would reach the Niger on the 27th of June. It was now the 27th of July, an...

By the middle of November the last preparations for the great voyage on the Niger were completed. Isaaco had been paid off, and one Amadi Fatuma, a native of Karson, and a great...

Simultaneously with the commencement of Park’s work of exploration, an event of almost equal moment in the history of the Niger basin had begun to germinate. This was the phenom...

The journal Isaaco brought back from the Niger did not add anything to our knowledge of the river, and so little did Amadi Fatuma’s narrative supplement it as to the results of...

Unhappily for the stay-at-home geographer, no matter how skilfully he may set forth the discoveries made in his study, his triumph can only come after they have been demonstrate...

Among the many valuable results arising from Clapperton and Denham’s expedition, not the least important was the great encouragement it gave to renewed enterprise. With the succ...

While Clapperton and Lander were thus bringing the work of Park to a successful conclusion, and proving the accuracy of M‘Queen’s geography of the Niger basin, there were others...

With the practical withdrawal of our Government from Niger enterprise, M‘Queen’s magnificent dream of British Empire in the heart of Africa seemingly vanished for ever. A new sc...

It has ever been a good thing for British commercial enterprise that its agents have never had to rely on their Government to pioneer new trade routes, and secure for them unexp...

Heavy leaden clouds hung overhead, from which rain fell in a steady downpour, and lightning flashed at rapid intervals. From time to time thunder crashed deafeningly about us, o...