_MUNGO PARK AT HOME._
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 interview him, and give their readers a
description of his appearance and a foretaste of his adventures.
He reached London before daybreak on the 25th December, and directed
his steps to the house of his brother-in-law, Mr. Dickson. Not caring
to disturb his relative at that early hour, he wandered about the
streets for some time, till finding one of the gates to the British
Museum Gardens open, he entered.
As it happened, Dickson had charge of these gardens, and on this
particular morning had business which took him there unusually early.
Conceive his amazement on coming face to face with what for a moment he
almost took to be a vision or ghost of his young relative, long since
believed to be dead. It did not take long to convince him, however,
that here was no ghost, but the actual traveller himself, safe and
well, his great mission carried through to a successful conclusion.
The interest, delight, and surprise of the Association, as well as of
the public generally, were no less keen. For some time it had been
looked on as a certainty that he had been murdered, and now the utmost
curiosity prevailed to hear his adventures, and at last learn something
authentic about the mysterious river of the negroes.
It looked indeed as if Park’s own prediction to his brother before
leaving for Africa, that he would “acquire a greater name than any ever
did,” was to be verified. In the absence of more definite news, the
hand to hand reports which circulated only tended to exaggerate his
feats and discoveries.
So eager became the demand for information that it was determined to
issue a preliminary report of the principal geographical results of the
expedition. This was written by Bryan Edwards, the Secretary of the
Association, a gentleman of no inconsiderable literary attainments, and
author of a “History of the British Colonies in the West Indies.”
To the collaboration of Edwards was added that of Major Rennell,
who worked out with very great care the traveller’s routes, and the
geography of the region generally. In addition, Rennell added a
memoir on the upper course of the Niger beyond Park’s furthest point,
collating with his information that of the Arabian geographers.
But the public demanded something more than the dry bones of geography
to satisfy their hungry appetite. They wanted also the flesh and blood
of his narrative--how he lived and moved, what he felt and suffered,
what dangers he faced, what hardships endured, the wonders he saw.
Books of travel had not then deluged the market and saturated men’s
minds with details about the remotest corners of Inner Africa. It was
practically virgin soil to the reader, who could in nowise guess
beforehand what startling revelations were in store for him. Compared
with the modern devourer of books of travel, his sensations would be as
those of the first explorer of the Gambia to the subdued expectancy of
our latest traveller.
To gratify this very natural curiosity Park now devoted himself. His
materials, apart from his memory, were but scanty. They consisted, in
fact, of short notes or memoranda, written on odds and ends of paper,
which must often have been far from legible, considering how they were
carried for months in the crown of a battered hat, exposed to damp and
all manner of accidents.
In the task of authorship Park was no doubt materially aided by Mr.
Edwards, with whom he lived on terms of great friendship. In one or
two places the pen of Edwards is clearly traceable, but these are few
and far between. Where he lent the most valuable assistance was in the
pruning, rearrangement, and revision which the work of a novice in
composition would almost necessarily require. In this respect, however,
Park is not alone among travellers. Few indeed among them have had such
a complete mastery of the pen and of the English language as to trust
absolutely in their own literary powers and judgment, although, as in
Park’s case, the assistance required has seldom gone beyond guidance
and revision.
Apart from his literary influence, it can hardly be doubted that
Edwards very materially moulded Park’s views on at least one important
subject--the slave trade. At that time the question of abolition had
become a burning one in the country, and Edwards was one of the warmest
advocates of the old order of things. He would give Africa Light,
but no Liberty. While actively employed in trying to open up the Dark
Continent to European influence, he strenuously strove to ensure that
that influence should remain of the most criminal and degrading nature.
Let the reader imagine what would have been the consequence to Africa
if the advocates of slavery had had their way, and the exploration
of the Continent had only been the forerunner of more widespread
ramifications of the slave trade. However incredible it may appear,
such might easily have been the case. People once accustomed to an evil
soon forget that it is such, and begin to look upon it as one of the
necessary and unavoidable ills of life. Take, for example, the survival
of the African gin trade to this very day, increasing and flourishing
long after its dissociation from its well-matched sister traffic in
slaves, and everywhere dogging the explorer’s footsteps. It is doubtful
if even the slave trade has done more to brutalise and degrade the
negro; and yet even in our time there is only a partial awakening to
the frightful evils of the iniquitous traffic.
This culpable blindness or carelessness on our part is doubtless
largely fostered by the comforting and comfortable belief that our
missionaries are doing a great and noble work in Africa, and that mere
contact with the European and European commerce must of necessity
have an elevating effect upon the lower races. The truth is that for
every negro nominally or genuinely brought under the influence of
Christianity, ten thousand have been driven by drink to depths of moral
and physical depravity unheard of among uncontaminated native tribes,
and that so far contact with the European and his commerce has resulted
not in elevation to the African, but in degradation of the most
loathsome kind.
To what extent Park was really influenced in his opinions on the
slave question by Edwards it would be difficult to say. It matters
little, however, for whether he really believed in the righteousness
of slavery or was merely reasoned into neutrality, his position was
equally indefensible. Nay, more, if, as his friends say, he really
believed that the trade was an unjust one, the position he assumed
was nothing more nor less than criminal. These urge, as if it were
an extenuating circumstance, that in private conversation he even
expressed the greatest abhorrence of the traffic. This, it must be
confessed, seems improbable. Such an attitude is utterly unlike what
we should expect from a man of Park’s marked individuality and strong
earnest truthfulness. Moreover, it seems sufficiently clear that the
public opinion of his day ascribed to him a belief in the righteousness
of the principle of slavery, and if it was wrong, it seems strange that
he took no means to correct it. But that it was not wrong seems evident
from a speech delivered on the Abolition of the Slave Trade by George
Hibbert in Parliament in 1803.
The following is an extract--valuable, too, as throwing light upon the
share of Edwards in the writing of Park’s book:--
“I have read and heard that we are to look to Park’s facts and not to
his opinions; and it has been insinuated that his editor, Mr. Edwards,
had foisted those opinions (relating to the slave trade) into his book.
It happened to me once to converse with Mr. Park at a meeting of the
Linnean Society, when this very topic was started, and he assured me
that, not being in the habit of literary composition, he was obliged
to employ some one to put his manuscript into a form fit for the public
eye, but that every sheet of the publication had undergone his strict
revision, and that not only every fact but every sentiment was his own.”
We must, therefore, till more convincing proof than hearsay evidence
is forthcoming, believe that Mungo Park was a believer in the slave
trade. Such a position we can understand and make all due allowance
for as the result of the ideas of the time, and of those by whom he
was immediately surrounded--to believe else were to place Park on a
distinctly lower pedestal than that to which he is entitled by his many
meritorious characteristics.
Shortly after the publication of the abstract of Park’s narrative,
he left London on a visit to his family at Foulshiels, where his
mother still lived, though his father had been dead for some years.
Here he remained the whole of the summer and autumn of 1798, working
assiduously at the narrative of his travels. This was probably anything
but an agreeable task to him after the eventful life he had led for
three years, and unaccustomed as he was to literary work. But Park
was not the man to shirk any work, however irksome, if it in any way
appeared to him in the light of a duty. His mornings he devoted to
writing, his evenings to strolls along the bank of his much-loved
Yarrow, where, rarely troubled by native or by passing stranger, he
could undisturbed recall the various events which marked his African
wanderings, and on the dreamy rush of the mountain stream let his
thoughts glide back to the majestic sweep of the Joliba moving eastward
towards its unknown bourne. What hours he must have spent thus,
seeking in his mind’s eye to pierce the dark veil which so mysteriously
shrouded the great African river beyond Timbuktu, and follow it to
its union with the ocean, or its gradual disappearance in the Central
Deserts.
At times restlessness and a feeling of revolt took possession of him,
and then the only charm that could exorcise the demon of unrest within
him or soothe his wild vague longings, was a long swift walk among the
wild romantic scenery around. Up Yarrow’s winding dale, on the bold
front of Newark Hill, or the heathery summit of the Broomy Law, his
was the keen pleasure of a soul that knows “a rapture on the lonely
shore.” The distant bleat of sheep, the plaintive call of the curlew,
and the whirr of grouse, harmonised well with the mood possessing him,
and touched his heart with the wild pathos of Nature. Happiest when
alone, he found companions in all the sounds around him. The breeze,
the rushing stream, the wild calls of bird and beast, all alike spoke
to him, and adapted themselves to his every mood.
All this may be vaguely discerned by virtue of the gleams of light
which have momentarily shot across the darkness of the past, and
preserved a blurred though speaking print of the great traveller at
home among his native hills.
But although thus isolated from the world at large, Park was not
entirely cut off from communication with his fellow-men. His chief
resort when in a mood for society was the house of his friend and
master in medicine, Dr. Anderson, who still practised in Selkirk,
within easy reach of Foulshiels. As one result of these frequent
visits, the friendship of former days for Miss Anderson speedily
developed into a warmer feeling, and summer saw them engaged.
Towards the latter part of 1798, Park returned to London to make the
final arrangements for the publication of his narrative. Even then,
however, much had to be done with the assistance of Edwards before the
manuscript was finally ready for the press, and spring had come before
the book saw the light.
It would be difficult to overestimate the enthusiasm with which it
was received, or the interest in Park and Africa which it aroused.
Two editions were sold off in rapid succession, and were followed by
several others in the course of the following ten years.
Apart from its being almost the first of African books of travel, and
from the absolute novelty of all it contained, the narrative was told
with a charm and _naïveté_ in themselves sufficient to captivate the
most fastidious reader. Modesty and truthfulness peeped from every
sentence. Its author claimed no praise, no admiration, beyond that due
to him for having done his duty. He took to himself no credit for all
the virtues he had shown. So afraid was he indeed that he might be
charged with being the author of what are called “travellers’ tales,”
that he deliberately suppressed several remarkable adventures. On
this point he said to Sir Walter Scott, “that in all cases where he
had information to communicate which he thought of importance to the
public, he had stated the facts boldly, leaving it to his readers to
give such credit to his statements as they might appear justly to
deserve, but that he would not shock their credulity or render his
travels more marvellous by introducing circumstances which, however
true, were of little or no moment.”
Happily his narrative required no aid from such suppressed adventures,
however strange they might be, or however much we should have liked to
know them. He had incident enough to make half-a-dozen of the spun out
books of modern travel. Neither then nor since has any African explorer
had such a romantic tale to tell, nor has any out of all the long list
of adventurers who have followed told his tale so well. Some there
have been who have flourished more theatrically across the African
stage, and by virtue of striking dramatic effects, and a certain spice
of bloodshed, have struck the imagination of those who are content
with the superficial show of things, and are not too critical as to
their significance. But for actual hardships undergone, for dangers
faced, and difficulties overcome, together with an exhibition of the
virtues which make a man great in the rude battle of life, Mungo Park
stands without a rival. In one respect only--that of motive--does
another surpass him. Here Livingstone stands head and shoulders above
his predecessor, whose aspirations after personal name and fame, and
apathetic attitude towards the anti-slavery movement, will ill bear
comparison with the noble longings which inspired the great missionary
to travel, that the negro heathen might be brought within the pale of
Christian brotherhood, and stirred him to the consecration of his life
in healing “the great open sore of the Universe.”
Not that Park was altogether awanting in all that tends towards the
spirit of self-sacrifice. On the contrary, throughout his whole
narrative we fail to find the faintest trace of vulgar ambition or
ignoble self-seeking. He deliberately suppressed incidents which
would have added greatly to his fame, especially among those whose
imagination is only appealed to by the marvellous. His whole nature
shrank from notoriety. He was retired and reserved in manner, and
instead of seeking to play the _rôle_ of the “lion” in society,
we find that he always looked forward to a time when, his labours
ended, he should be able to seek the seclusion and retirement of the
country--scarcely the goal this of a merely selfish ambition.
As little was he actuated by the desire of gain, as Ruskin would have
us believe. Except perhaps in one conspicuous instance, African travel
has never been known to lead to the attainment of riches, and certainly
to Park money was never held out as an inducement. The spark that
quickened his manhood to heroism, and fired him “to scorn delights and
live laborious days,” was the worthy ambition of a noble mind to work
for the good of his country and the advancement of knowledge, rewarded
solely by the approbation of his own conscience and the esteem of good
men.
It is to be remembered that a hundred years ago Christian philanthropy
had not become so cosmopolitan--so world-embracing--as to take within
its sphere all who bear the name of man, without respect of race,
religion, or degree of civilisation. From what we know of his intense
religious convictions and kindly nature, Park, had he lived at the
present day, would probably have been a missionary aflame for the
cause of Christ and ready to lay down his life for it, or a traveller
preaching a crusade, not only against the slave trade, which is so
often ignorantly ascribed to the influence of Islam, but against the
gin trade likewise, which with quite as much plausibility might be
associated with Christianity.
At the period of the publication of Park’s narrative the question
of Abolition was in every man’s mind. The horrors of the middle
passage--the iniquities perpetrated in the plantations by men calling
themselves Englishmen--were being painted in colours by no means too
dark. Park’s book came opportunely to add to the literature of the
subject, and undoubtedly, in spite of the anti-abolition opinions he
was believed to hold, the facts he disclosed regarding the horrors of
the slave route added materially to the arguments of the Abolitionists.
Coming, indeed, as was believed, from one of the opposite party, they
were of all the more value, the natural assumption being that the
worst aspects had been softened down and as good a case made out for
slavery as was possible without direct violation of the truth. It was
abundantly clear to all unprejudiced minds that the conditions under
which the trade was carried on, and the evil results flowing from it as
described by Park, were iniquitous and shameful in the extreme. To such
Park’s opinions were of small account compared with his facts, and we
may safely conclude that these latter very materially contributed to
the sweeping away of the vile traffic.