“MY DEAREST MOTHER,--I was in hopes I should have been back before you were aware of my absence. I went off--now that the murder is out--entirely from fear of hurting your feelings. I did not write to you lest you should not be satisfied. Depend upon it, my dearest mother, I shall return safe. You know what a curious fellow I am, therefore don’t be afraid for me. Besides, it was my duty--my filial duty--to go, and I shall yet raise the name of Park. You ought rather to rejoice that I took it into my head. Give my kindest love to my sister. Tell her I think the boat would do very well for the Niger. I shall be back in three years at the most--perhaps in one. God bless you, my dearest mother, and believe me to be, your most affectionate and dutiful son, THOMAS PARK.” Thereafter an ominous silence followed. Like the elder Park, the hot-headed young fellow, whom we cannot help loving for his folly--knowing as we do its mainspring--disappeared from sight in the Dark Continent, whence only vague rumours ever came back, sorrow-laden, telling of a speedy and bloody close to his wild yet heroic mission. And so fatally ended the connection of the Park family with the exploration of the River Niger, and thus closed the first great chapter in the history of the opening up of Inner Africa. CHAPTER XXIV. _THE FULAH REVOLUTION._ Simultaneously with the commencement of Park’s work of exploration, an event of almost equal moment in the history of the Niger basin had begun to germinate. This was the phenomenal rise to a position of immense political and religious importance of the Fulahs--a people known among the Haussa as Fillani, and in Bornu as Fillatah. As Park was the forerunner of Christian enterprise, so Othman dan Fodiyo, a simple Fulah Malaam or teacher, in raising the banner of Islam, marked the revival of the political and religious spirit of Mohammedanism in the Central and Western Sudan. We have seen how the huge empire of Songhay crumbled into pieces before the musketeers of a Moorish sultan--how with its political influence went its civilising influence, and whole kingdoms and provinces fell back into the old idolatry and barbarism. Similarly and almost contemporaneously, Bornu, largely though not so entirely, lost its old military power and progressive force. The Haussa States, left to themselves, showed a like degenerative tendency, and largely lapsed into the old heathen ways.