VOL. 1 [OF 2]***


Transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org

                        CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY

                                * * * * *





                                 TRAVELS
                                  IN THE
                            INTERIOR OF AFRICA


                                    BY
                                MUNGO PARK

                                 VOL. I.

                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]

                        CASSELL & COMPANY Limited
                       _LONDON  PARIS & MELBOURNE_
                                   1893




INTRODUCTION


MUNGO PARK was born on the 10th of September, 1771, the son of a farmer
at Fowlshiels, near Selkirk.  After studying medicine in Edinburgh, he
went out, at the age of twenty-one, assistant-surgeon in a ship bound for
the East Indies.  When he came back the African Society was in want of an
explorer, to take the place of Major Houghton, who had died.  Mungo Park
volunteered, was accepted, and in his twenty-fourth year, on the 22nd of
May, 1795, he sailed for the coasts of Senegal, where he arrived in June.

Thence he proceeded on the travels of which this book is the record.  He
was absent from England for a little more than two years and a half;
returned a few days before Christmas, 1797.  He was then twenty-six years
old.  The African Association published the first edition of his travels
as “Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, 1795–7, by Mungo Park,
with an Appendix containing Geographical Illustrations of Africa, by
Major Rennell.”

Park married, and settled at Peebles in medical practice, but was
persuaded by the Government to go out again.  He sailed from Portsmouth
on the 30th of January, 1805, resolved to trace the Niger to its source
or perish in the attempt.  He perished.  The natives attacked him while
passing through a narrow strait of the river at Boussa, and killed him,
with all that remained of his party, except one slave.  The record of
this fatal voyage, partly gathered from his journals, and closed by
evidences of the manner of his death, was first published in 1815, as
“The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa in 1805, by Mungo
Park, together with other Documents, Official and Private, relating to
the same Mission.  To which is prefixed an Account of the Life of Mr.
Park.”

                                                                     H. M.




CHAPTER I.
JOURNEY FROM PORTSMOUTH TO THE GAMBIA.


SOON after my return from the East Indies in 1793, having learned that
the noblemen and gentlemen associated for the purpose of prosecuting
discoveries in the interior of Africa were desirous of engaging a person
to explore that continent, by the way of the Gambia river, I took
occasion, through means of the President of the Royal Society, to whom I
had the honour to be known, of offering myself for that service.  I had
been informed that a gentleman of the name of Houghton, a captain in the
army, and formerly fort-major at Goree, had already sailed to the Gambia,
under the direction of the Association, and that there was reason to
apprehend he had fallen a sacrifice to the climate, or perished in some
contest with the natives.  But this intelligence, instead of deterring me
from my purpose, animated me to persist in the offer of my services with
the greater solicitude.  I had a passionate desire to examine into the
productions of a country so little known, and to become experimentally
acquainted with the modes of life and character of the natives.  I knew
that I was able to bear fatigue, and I relied on my youth and the
strength of my constitution to preserve me from the effects of the
climate.  The salary which the committee allowed was sufficiently large,
and I made no stipulation for future reward.  If I should perish in my
journey, I was willing that my hopes and expectations should perish with
me; and if I should succeed in rendering the geography of Africa more
familiar to my countrymen, and in opening to their ambition and industry
new sources of wealth and new channels of commerce, I knew that I was in
the hands of men of honour, who would not fail to bestow that
remuneration which my successful services should appear to them to merit.
The committee of the Association having made such inquiries as they
thought necessary, declared themselves satisfied with the qualifications
that I possessed, and accepted me for the service; and, with that
liberality which on all occasions distinguishes their conduct, gave me
every encouragement which it was in their power to grant, or which I
could with propriety ask.

It was at first proposed that I should accompany Mr. James Willis, who
was then recently appointed consul at Senegambia, and whose countenance
in that capacity, it was thought, might have served and