Transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition byDavid Price,
CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY
Travels
in the
Interior of Africa
BY
MUNGO PARK
Vol.I.
CASSELL & COMPANY Limited
LONDON PARIS &MELBOURNE
1893
INTRODUCTION
Mungo Park was born on the 10th ofSeptember, 1771, the son of a farmer at Fowlshiels, nearSelkirk. After studying medicine in Edinburgh, he went out,at the age of twenty-one, assistant-surgeon in a ship bound forthe East Indies. When he came back the African Society wasin want of an explorer, to take the place of Major Houghton, whohad died. Mungo Park volunteered, was accepted, and in histwenty-fourth year, on the 22nd of May, 1795, he sailed for thecoasts of Senegal, where he arrived in June.
Thence he proceeded on the travels of which this book is therecord. He was absent from England for a little more thantwo years and a half; returned a few days before Christmas,1797. He was then twenty-six years old. The AfricanAssociation published the first edition of his travels as“Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, 1795–7,by Mungo Park, with an Appendix containing GeographicalIllustrations of Africa, by Major Rennell.”
Park married, and settled at Peebles in medical practice, butwas persuaded by the Government to go out again. He sailedfrom Portsmouth on the 30th of January, 1805, resolved to tracethe Niger to its source or perish in the attempt. Heperished. The natives attacked him while passing through anarrow strait of the river at Boussa, and killed him, with allthat remained of his party, except one slave. The record ofthis fatal voyage, partly gathered from his journals, and closedby evidences of the manner of his death, was first published in1815, as “The Journal of a Mission to the Interior ofAfrica in 1805, by Mungo Park, together with other Documents,Official and Private, relating to the same Mission. Towhich is prefixed an Account of the Life of Mr. Park.”
H. M.
CHAPTER I.
JOURNEY FROM PORTSMOUTH TO THEGAMBIA.
Soon after my return from the EastIndies in 1793, having learned that the noblemen and gentlemenassociated for the purpose of prosecuting discoveries in theinterior of Africa were desirous of engaging a person to explorethat continent, by the way of the Gambia river, I took occasion,through means of the President of the Royal Society, to whom Ihad the honour to be known, of offering myself for thatservice. I had been informed that a gentleman of the nameof Houghton, a captain in the army, and formerly fort-major atGoree, had already sailed to the Gambia, under the direction ofthe Association, and that there was reason to apprehend he hadfallen a sacrifice to the climate, or perished in some contestwith the natives. But this intelligence, instead ofdeterring me from my purpose, animated me to persist in the offerof my services with the greater solicitude. I had apassionate desire to examine into the productions of a country solittle known, and t