Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible. Some minor corrections of spelling have been made.
Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
The World’s Great Explorers and Explorations.
Edited by J. SCOTT KELTIE, Librarian, Royal Geographical Society;
H. J. MACKINDER, M.A., Reader in Geography at the University of
Oxford; and E. G. RAVENSTEIN, F.R.G.S.
MUNGO PARK AND THE NIGER.
[Illustration: MUNGO PARK.]
MUNGO PARK AND THE NIGER.
BY
JOSEPH THOMSON,
AUTHOR OF “THROUGH MASAI LAND,” ETC.
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
EDITORIAL PREFACE.
The story of the world’s exploration is always attractive. We
naturally take a keen interest in the personality of the men who have
dared to force their way into the unknown, and so unveiled to us the
face of mother earth. The interest in the work of exploration has
been particularly strong and widespread in recent years, and it is
believed that a series of volumes dealing with the great explorers and
explorations of the past is likely to prove welcome to a wide circle
of readers. Without a knowledge of what has been accomplished, the
results of the unprecedented exploring activity of the present cannot
be understood. It is hoped, therefore, that the present series will
supply a real want. With one or two exceptions, each volume will deal
mainly with one leading explorer, bringing out prominently the man’s
personality, telling the story of his life, and showing in full detail
what he did for the exploration of the world. When it may be necessary
to depart somewhat from the general plan, it will always be kept in
view that the series is essentially a popular one. When complete the
series will form a Biographical History of Geographical Discovery.
The Editors congratulate themselves on having been able to secure the
co-operation of men well known as the highest authorities in their own
departments; their names are too familiar to the public to require
introduction. Each writer is of course entirely responsible for his own
work.
THE EDITORS.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE FIRST GLIMMERING OF LIGHT 1
II. MORE LIGHT: THE ARAB PERIOD 6
III. OPENING UP THE WAY TO THE NIGER 19
IV. PREPARING FOR PARK: THE AFRICAN ASSOCIATION 31
V. MUNGO PARK 36
VI. AT THE THRESHOLD 46
VII. FROM THE GAMBIA TO THE SENEGAL 53
VIII. ACROSS THE SENEGAL BASIN 65
IX. TO LUDAMAR 76
X. CAPTIVITY IN LUDAMAR 85
XI. TO THE NIGER 97
XII. DOWN THE RIVER TO SILLA 107
XIII. THE RETURN THROUGH BAMBARRA 120
XIV. REST AT KAMALIA 134
XV. THE SLAVE ROUTE 143
XVI. BACK TO THE GAMBIA AND HOME 154
XVII. MUNGO PARK AT HOME 164
XVIII. MUNGO PARK AT HOME--(_continued_) 175
XIX. PREPARING FOR A NEW EXPEDITION 186
XX. PARK’S SECOND RETURN TO THE GAMBIA 196
XXI. STILL STRUGGLING TOWARDS THE GREAT RIVER 208
XXII. TO THE NIGER 221
XXIII. THE LAST OF PARK 233
XXIV. THE FULAH REVOLUTION 246
XXV. NEW ENTERPRISES AND NEW THEORIES 254
XXVI. THE TERMINATION OF THE NIGER 264
XXVII. THE TERMINATION OF THE NIGER--(_continued_) 277
XXVIII. FILLING UP THE DETAILS 288
XXIX. THE FRENCH ADVANCE TO THE NIGER 301
XXX. THE ROYAL NIGER COMPANY 307
XXXI. THE ROYAL NIGER COMPANY--(_continued_) 319
INDEX 333
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS.
_FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS._
1. Portrait of Mungo Park _Frontispiece_
2. Facsimile Extract of Letter from Mungo Park to
Dr. Anderson _facing page_ 42
3. Bambarra Women Pounding Corn „ 112
4. Bammaku „ 128
5. Baobab Tree „ 144
6. Facsimile Extract of Mungo Park’s Letter to his
Wife „ 180
7. Rock Scenery of the Upper Senegal „ 212
8. Portrait of Captain Clapperton „ 265
9. View in Sokoto „ 275
10. Akassa „ 286
11. Timbuktu „ 292
12. Traders’ House, Abutshi „ 322
13. Haussa Village „ 330
_ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT._
Birthplace of Mungo Park _page_ 37
Mungo Park’s Encampment „ 207
Group of Fulahs „ 247
Portrait of Richard Lander „ 282
View on the Niger above Lokoja „ 294
Haussa Hut „ 326
Portrait of the Sultan of Sokoto’s Brother „ 328
_MAPS (Printed in Colours)._
I. Guinea _facing page_ 1
II. Mungo Park’s Travels „ 47
III. Libya Secundum Ptolomæum, A.C. 130 _at end_
IV. Edrisi’s Africa, 1154 „
V. Catalan, Map of the World, Western Half, 1375 „
VI. Guinea and the Sudan, according to D’Anville, 1749 „
VII. Guinea and the Sudan, according to J. Rennell, 1798 „
_MAPS IN TEXT._
O. Dapper, Nigritarum Regio, 1671 _page_ 24
O. Dapper, 1671 „ 25
Reduced Fac-simile of Mungo Park’s Autograph Map „ 185
The Bussa Rapids „ 241
[Map: GUINEA.]
MUNGO PARK AND THE NIGER.
CHAPTER I.
_THE FIRST GLIMMERING OF LIGHT._
To find the first allusion to the River Niger we have to go back to the
very dawn of history.
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 rest content with a knowledge
of their own countries. Then, as in the Middle Ages, kings and emperors
thirsted for political aggrandisement, merchants for new sources of
wealth, and enterprising spirits for opportunities to do deeds of high
emprise which would send their names down to posterity.
Phœnicia, Greece, Carthage, Rome, had each its bold navigators and
travellers, whose explorations can be more or less credibly gleaned
from the mass of fable and misrepresentation which time and ignorance
have gathered round them.
Even in those early days--twenty or more centuries ago--Africa was
the chief centre of attraction to such as longed to extend their
possessions or their knowledge of the earth’s surface. Already the
mystery of the Nile and Inner Africa beyond the Great Desert had
asserted its fascination over men’s minds. The Mediterranean nations
vied with each other in sending expedition after expedition to explore
the coast-line, and if possible circumnavigate the continent. Of these
some ventured by way of the Straits of Gibraltar--the Pillars of
Hercules, as they were then called--while others tried the Red Sea and
the eastern coast. What these ancient mariners actually accomplished
has been for centuries a matter of keen dispute, with but small
clearing up of the obscure horizon. It is not therefore for us to
enter into the debatable land, and happily the questions involved lie
outside our province. Sufficient for our purpose is it to know that
very extensive voyages were undertaken along both the east and west
coasts of Africa. Among the most noteworthy and credible of these is
the expedition sent by Necho, King of Egypt, with Phœnician navigators,
which is said to have accomplished the circumnavigation of the
continent; and the Carthaginian expedition of Hanno, which undoubtedly
explored the western coast for a very considerable distance towards the
equator.
But the enterprise of the Mediterranean nations was not confined only
to the coast-line. The commercial spirit of Carthage and the warlike
genius of Rome alike led them to seek the interior.
In this direction, however, each was fated to be as effectually checked
as their sailors had been by sea. The burning heat, the wide stretches
of barren sand, the waterless wastes, and the savage nomads which
they had to encounter, were as terrible to face as the huge waves
and frightful storms of the Atlantic. To the natural terrors of this
desert region, forsaken of the gods, their imagination added every
conceivable monstrosity, so that he indeed was a bold man who ventured
from the gay and pleasant confines of the northern lands into the awful
horrors of the Sahara.
Yet men there must have been, whether warriors, merchants, or simple
explorers, we know not, who crossed the dreaded desert zone, and
reached the more fertile countries of the negroes which lay beyond.
In the pages of Herodotus and Strabo, of Pliny and of Ptolemy, amid
all the mythological absurdities and ridiculous stories with which
they abound, we find not only ample evidence of such successful
adventure, but a wonderfully just estimate of the physical conditions
which characterised the region lying between the Mediterranean and the
Sudan. They describe first a zone of sharply contrasted fertility and
barrenness, of green oasis and repellent desert, scantily inhabited by
wild, roving tribes. Next comes a more terrible region lying further
to the south--a land of desolation and death, swept by the wild
sirocco and sandstorm, burnt by fierce relentless suns, unrefreshed by
sparkling earth-born springs, unmoistened by the heaven-sent rain or by
the gentle dew of night. Beyond lies a third region--the land of the
negroes--made fertile by spring and stream, by marsh and lake.
More remarkable still is the fact that in each of the writers mentioned
we find clear indications of a knowledge of a great river running
through Negroland.
With minds on the search for a solution of the Nile problems--its
origin, its course, and the mystery of its annual overflow--and from
the likelihood that some of their informants had actually seen this
river when it ran in an easterly direction, the opinion generally
adopted by the ancients was that the river of the negroes was the Nile
itself.
Of the various sources of information upon which the classical
writers depended for their descriptions of these savage lands we know
but little. One there is, however, which stands out with wonderful
clearness and prominence and a general air of credibility--the
expedition of the Nasamones as related by Herodotus.
The Nasamones--five young men of distinction, doubtless without
suitable outlets for their ambitions and energies at home--set out
from their native country to the south-west of Egypt, bent on the
exploration of the heart of Africa.
Travelling partly south and partly west, they crossed the
semi-inhabited, semi-sterile zone. Arrived at the confines of the great
desert, they collected provisions and supplied themselves with water,
and bold in heart “to seek, to conquer, or to die,” plunged into the
terrible unknown. For many weary days they pursued their quest with
unabated courage and perseverance. At length they emerged from the
region of desolation and death, and found themselves in a fertile
country inhabited by pigmies, having abundance of fruit trees, and
watered by vast lakes and marshes. Furthermore, they found a large
river flowing from west to east.
Whether these enterprising young African explorers had reached the
neighbourhood of Lake Chad, as we might be disposed to believe, or the
Niger in the vicinity of the great bend of the main stream, it would
be waste of time to ask. Let us be satisfied with knowing that at this
very early period of the world’s history, many centuries before the
Christian era, the Central or Western Sudan of our days was reached,
and the fact established that through it ran a great river.
In this way the exploration of Central Africa was inaugurated--the
first uncertain glimmer of light thrown upon its dark surface; and
the River Niger revealed to the world to be a theme of discussion
to arm-chair geographers, and a goal to be aimed at by the more
adventurous spirits who would realise their thoughts in deeds rather
than on paper.