Transcribed from the 1887 Cassell & Company edition byDavid Price,
CASSELL’S NATIONALLIBRARY
Travels
in the
Interior of Africa
BY
MUNGO PARK
Vol.II.
CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
LONDON,PARIS, NEW YORK& MELBOURNE.
1887.
INTRODUCTION.
The first of the two volumes whichcontain Mungo Park’s “Travels in the Interior ofAfrica” brought him through many perils to the first sightof the Niger, and left him sick and solitary, stripped of nearlyall that he possessed, a half-starved white man on a half-starvedhorse. He was helped on by a bag of cowries from a kindlychief; but in this volume he has not advanced far before he isstripped of all.
There is not in the range of English literature a moreinteresting traveller’s tale than was given to the world inthis book which this volume completes. It took the deeperhold upon its readers, because it appeared at a time when Englishhearts began to be stirred by the wrongs of slavery. But atany time there would be strong human interest in the unconsciouspainting of the writer’s character, as he makes his wayover far regions in which no white man had before been seen, withfirm resolve and with good temper as well as courage andprudence, which bring him safe through many a hair-breadthescape. There was a true kindness in Mungo Park that foundanswering kindness and brought out the spirit of humanity inthose upon whose goodwill his life depends; in the negroes often,although never in the Moors. There was no flinching in theman, who, when robbed of his horse, stripped to the shirt in aforest and left upon a lion’s track, looked down with abotanist’s eye on the beauty of a tiny moss at his feet,drew comfort from it, and laboured on with quiet faith inGod. The same eye was as quick to recognise the diversecharacters of men. In Mungo Park shrewd humour and rightfeeling went together. Whatever he had to say he saidclearly and simply; and it went straight home. He had thegood fortune to be born before “picturesque writing”was invented. When we return to the Gambia with Mungo Parkunder the same escort with a coffle of slaves on their way to beshipped for the use of Christians, from the strength of hisunlaboured narrative we get clear knowledge unclouded by arainbow mist of words. He is of one blood with the sailorsin whom Hakluyt delighted.
CHAPTER XVI.
VILLAGES ON THE NIGER—DETERMINES TOGO NO FARTHER EASTWARD.
Being, in the manner that has beenrelated, compelled to leave Sego, I was conducted the same