by Mungo Park
On 18 November, Park received a message from Mansong, the king of nearby Segu who had offered him protection for the first stage of his journey, urging him to leave as soon as possible, before word of the infidels spread along the river. So with the four Britons and four Africans, Park boarded the Joliba and set sail on a journey that could only have two possible endings: either he would find the end of the Niger and return home in glory, or he would die.
Park had written to his wife that ‘we can expect to be in England on the first of May’, but there was neither sight nor word of him that spring. In London, where he remained a celebrity, expectation ran high. Then on 10 July 1806, the following notice appeared in The Times: ‘a letter, it is said, has been received from the River Gambia, stating, that Mr MUNGO PARKE [sic], the traveller, and his retinue (two or three excepted) have been murdered by the natives of the interior of that country. This story is stated to have been verified by the arrival of the persons who escaped the massacre, at Widah.’ In September, the paper ran another report, ‘that Mr Park and the few of his companions who remained, had been murdered by order of the King of Sego, who considered them as spies.’ A couple of weeks later, Banks received word via one of his Moroccan contacts that ‘Mr Parke arrived at Timbuctoo in March last’. The report, translated from the Arabic, read: ‘a few days since a boat came to this place [the port of Timbuktu] having Christians on board: they hoisted a white flag, and remained at anchor in the Nile from the rising till the setting sun: no one went to them, nor did they come (or communicate) with any one: they did not appear (to be) hostile, but on the contrary, (they seemed) peaceably inclined, and inoffensive. I think they wished to trade with us, but the meaning of the flag was not understood here, and they returned towards Jennie in the morning, since which we have nor seen nothing of them, nor of their boat.’ Banks confessed to another friend that he had ‘doubts whether the whole performance is not a Fable’. In December another report leaked out of Africa, this time from a Moor who knew for a fact that Park had been attacked by Tuaregs. In 1810, a British trader in Morocco told Banks that he had news that Park’s party had been seen on the Niger in the summer of 1808. There were many others. But how to find out if they were true?
The previous year, 1809, the British had taken over the long-held French post on the Senegal River. There then followed a series of happy coincidences, which helped establish the events following Park’s departure from Sansanding. The new British Governor of the Senegal heard that Isaaco, the guide Park had sent back to the Gambia River, had been seen in the area. Isaaco was approached and agreed to travel to the Niger to see what news he could find of Park. Isaaco reached Sansanding in October 1810, where he had the good fortune to meet Amadi Fatouma, who had replaced him as Park’s guide. ‘They are all dead,’ Amadi cried when he saw Isaaco, ‘they are lost forever’.
Isaaco arrived back in Senegal in September 1811 and with him he carried Amadi Fatouma’s account of events after he boarded the Joliba in November 1805:
We departed from Sansanding in a canoe the 27th day of the moon, and went in two days to Sellee [Silla], where Mr Park ended his first voyage. Mr Park bought a slave to help him in the navigation of the canoe. There was Mr Park, Martyn, three other white men, three slaves, and myself as guide and interpreter; nine in number, to navigate the canoe: without landing we bought the slave. We went in two days to Ginne. We gave the chief one piece of baft and went on. In passing Sibby, three canoes came after us, armed with pikes, lances, bows and arrows, etc, but no fire-arms. Being sure of their hostile intentions, we ordered them to go back, but to no effect; and were obliged to repulse them by force. Passed on; we passed Rakbara; three came up to stop our passage, which we repelled by force. On passing Timbuctoo we were again attacked by three canoes; which we beat off, always killing many of the natives. On passing Gouroumo seven canoes came after us, which we likewise beat off. We lost one white man by sickness: we were reduced to eight hands; having each of us fifteen muskets, always in order and ready for action. Passed by a village (of which I have forgotten the name), the residence of King Gotoijege; after passing which we counted sixty canoes coming after us, which we repulsed, and killed a great number of men. Seeing so many men killed, and our superiority over them, I took hold of Martyn’s hand, saying, “Martyn, let us cease firing; for we have killed too many already”; on which Martyn wanted to kill me, had not Mr Park interfered. After passing Gotoijege a long way, we met a very strong army on one side of the river, composed of the Poul nation; they had no beasts of any kind. We passed on the other side and went on without hostilities.
On going along we struck on the rocks. A hippopotamus rose near us, and had nearly overset the canoe; we fired on the animal and drove it away. After a great deal of trouble we got off the canoe without any material danger. We came to an anchor before Kaffo, and passed the day there. We had in the canoe before we departed from Sansanding, a very large stock of provisions, salted and fresh of all kinds; which enabled us to go along without stopping at any place, for fear of accident. The canoe was large enough to contain with ease one hundred and twenty people. In the evening we started and came to before an island; we saw on shore a great quantity of hippopotami; on our approach they went into the water in such confusion, that they almost upset our canoe. We passed the island and sailed. In the morning three canoes from Kaffo came after us, which we beat off. We came to near a small island, and saw some of the natives; I was sent on shore to buy some milk. When I got among them I saw two canoes and people, telling the people belonging to them, that if they should kill me, or keep me prisoner on shore, he would kill them all and carry their canoes away with him. Those on shore suspecting Mr Park’s intentions, sent me off in another canoes on board; they were then released. After which we bought some provisions from them, and made them some presents.
A short time after our departure, twenty canoes came after us from the same place; on coming near, they hailed and said, “Amadi Fatouma, how can you pass through our country without giving us anything.” I mentioned what they had said to Mr Park; and he gave them a few grains of amber and some trinkets, and they went back peaceably. On coming to a shallow part of the river, we saw on the shore a great many men sitting down; coming nearer to them they stood up; we presented our muskets to them, which made them run off to the interior. A little farther on we came to a very difficult passage. The rocks had barred the river; but three passages were still open between them. On coming near one of them, we discovered the same people again, standing on the top of a large rock; which caused great uneasiness to us, especially to me, and I seriously promised never to pass there again without making considerable charitable donations to the poor. We returned and went to a pass of less danger, where we passed unmolested.
We came to before Carmasse, and gave the chief one piece of baft. We went on and anchored before Gourmon. Mr Park sent me on shore with forty thousand cowries to buy provisions. I went and bought rice, onions, fowls, milk, etc, and departed late in the evening. The chief of the village sent a canoe after us, to let us know of a large army encamped on the top of a very high mountain, waiting for us; and that we had better return, or be on our guard. We immediately came to an anchor, and spent there the rest of the day and all the night. We started in the morning; on passing the above-mentioned mountain, we saw the army, composed of Moors, with horses and camels; but without any fire-arms. As they said nothing to us, we passed on quietly, and entered the country of Haoussa, and came to anchor. Mr Park said to me, “Now, Amadi, you are at the end of your journey; I engaged you to conduct me here; you are going to leave me, but before you go, you must give me the names of the necessaries of life, etc, in the language of the countries through which I am going to pass”; to which I agreed, and we spent two days together about it, without landing. During our voyage I was the only one who had landed. We departed and arrived at Yaour.
I was sent on shore the next morning with a musket and a sabre, to carry to the chief of the village,
also with three pieces of white baft or distribution. I went and gave the chief his present; I also gave one piece to Alhagi, one to Alhagi-biron, and the other to a person whose name I forget, all Marabous. The chief gave us a bullock, a sheep, three jars of honey, and four men’s loads of rice. Mr Park gave me seven thousand cowries, and ordered me to buy provisions, which I did; he told me to go to the chief and give him five silver rings, some powder and flints, and tell him that these presents were given to the king by the white men, who were taking leave of him before they went away. After the chief had received these things, he enquired if the white men intended to come back. Mr Park being informed of this enquiry, replied that he could not return any more.* Mr Park had paid me for my voyage before we left Sansanding; I said to him, ‘I agreed to carry you into the kingdom of Haoussa: we are now in Haoussa. I have fulfilled my engagements with you; I am therefore going to leave you here and return.’
Next day (Saturday) Mr Park departed, and I slept in the village (Yaour). Next morning, I went to the king to pay my respects to him; on entering the house I found tow men who came on horseback; they were sent by the chief of Yaour. They said to the king, ‘We are sent by the chief of Yaour to let you know that the white men went away, without giving you or him (the chief) anything; they have a great many things with them, and we have received nothing from them; and this Amadou Fatouma now before you is a bad man, and has likewise made a fool of you both.’ The king immediately ordered me to be put in irons; which was accordingly done, and everything I had taken from me, some were for killing me, and some for preserving my life. The next morning early the king sent an army to a village called Boussa near the river side. There is before this village a rock across the whole breadth of the river. One part of the rocks is very high; there is a large opening in that rock in the form of a door, which is the only passage for the water to pass through; the tide current is here very strong. The army went and took possession of the top of this opening. Mr Park came there after the army had posted itself; he nevertheless attempted to pass. The people began to attack him, throwing lances, pikes, arrows, and stones. Mr Park defended himself for a long time; two of his slaves at the stern of the canoe were killed; they threw everything they had in the canoe into the river, and kept firing; but being overpowered by numbers and fatigue, and unable to keep up the canoe against the current, and no probability of escaping, Mr Park took hold of one of the white men, and jumped into the water; Martyn did the same, and they were drowned in the stream in attempting to escape. The only slave remaining in the boat, seeing the natives persist in throwing weapons at the canoe without ceasing, stood up and said to them, ‘Stop throwing now, you see nothing in the canoe, and nobody but myself, therefore cease. Take me and the canoes, but don’t kill me.’ They took possession of the canoe and the man, and carried them to the king.
I was kept in irons three months; the king released me and gave me a slave (woman). I immediately went to the slave taken in the canoe, who told me in what manner Mr Park and all of them had died, and what I have related above. I asked him if he was sure nothing had been found in the canoe after its capture; he said that nothing remained in the canoe but himself and a sword-belt. I asked him where the sword-belt was; he said the king took it, and had made a girth for his horse with it.’
According to Amadi Fatouma, the Joliba passed Timbuktu, around the great Niger bend and down into Yauri, one of the Hausa states in what is now Nigeria. Park seems to have been taken over by a sense of paranoia: perhaps the memory of the way he was treated by Ali of Ludamar was preying on him as he travelled east from Segu. In contrast to his first journey, where he made contact with people in every village he passed and was always happy to palaver, on the second journey he had less and less contact with Africans, until Amadi made the revealing comment that ‘during our voyage I was the only one who had landed’. This growing distrust seems to have created the circumstances that, according to Amadi, led to his death.
When Amadi Fatouma’s journal reached London, it was accepted that the fact of his death had been established. But the circumstances of his death – and the whereabouts of his final journal – were still a matter of debate. Amadi Fatouma had not been present when Park’s boat was attacked: he had heard the details from the slave who survived. And in spite of the guide’s compelling account of the traveller’s end, rumours of Park’s survival continued to emerge – in June 1813, for instance, Banks heard from a Cambridgeshire clergyman, who had heard from his brother, a Bombay merchant, who had heard from an Englishman resident in Abyssinia, who had heard from a Muslim trader from Gondar that a strange white man, fifty years old, with a red beard, had been seen in the interior of Africa. Banks seemed convinced of the explorer’s death, but Ailie, Mungo Park’s wife, and her children continued to believe he was alive. When nothing more was heard, Thomas, their second son, sailed to Accra in 1827, spent three months on the coast preparing to travel up to Bussa, but died of fever when he went inland.
A year earlier, twenty years after Parks’ death, the British explorers Hugh Clapperton and Richard Lander passed by Bussa and had Amadi’s story confirmed to them by several people, including a man who claimed to have been an eyewitness. This man insisted that the travellers were killed not by the King of Yauri but on the orders of the King of Bussa, who heard of the arrival of an unfamiliar boat containing lighter-skinned and heavily-armed people, and assumed that Park and his companions were Fulani raiders.
As well as confirmation of Park’s death, Clapperton was also hoping to retrieve some of Park’s belongings, in particular his last journal. In this he was disappointed, for the King of Yauri had given it to a trader who was subsequently killed by Fulani raiders. Lander returned to the Niger several years later and in Bussa was given Park’s embroidered damask robe, while in Yauri he bought the double-barrelled gun Park had given to the king. Both of these were lost in his subsequent journey, during which he settled the question of the course of the Niger. One thing Lander saw but could not obtain was a printed book with Park’s name in it. But in 1858, a British army officer saw this same ‘volume of logarithms, with Mungo Park’s name, and autobiographic notes and memoranda’ and was able to trade it for his pocket knife. It was then given to the Royal Geographical Society in London, where it remains, the last known relic of one of the great travellers in Africa, and one who considered he was travelling among civilised people. ‘The mode of supporting foreigners,’ he wrote from first-hand experience, ‘does great honour to their humanity.’
It will never be possible to pin down the exact events that led to Park’s death, but perhaps the most fitting way to remember it is through a story that was recorded by a British official in the Kontagora area of Nigeria. The date, 1913, more than a hundred years after the traveller had passed on:
When Kisaran Dogo was ‘King’ of Boussa a white man came down the Nile in a canoe. He gave Kisaran Dogo a large coin. When Neda his daughter was about to marry he had the coin attached to a ring as a wedding gift for Neda. Neda did not accept the present stating that she preferred slaves which were given to her. Kisaran Dogo kept the ring which has been worn by every Sarkin Boussa since that time. The white man stayed a few days at Boussa and then started down the Niger – the same day his canoe was capsized in the rapids of Bubarro between Malili and Garafini. It is said that when the next day broke night immediately came on again.
ANTHONY SATTIN
London
2003
Anthony Sattin is an acclaimed writer, broadcaster and literary critic with extensive knowledge and experience of travel in northern Africa. His books include The Pharaoh’s Shadow: Travels in ancient and modern Egypt (Phoenix, 2001) and The Gates of Africa: Death, Discovery and the Search for Timbuktu (HarperCollins, 2003), which tells the remarkable story of the African Association and their African travellers, among them Mungo Park.
* These words probably led to Park’s death; for the knowledge that he would not be returning may have given the chief the idea o
f withholding the presents from the king.
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