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.