And who will not cordially coincide in their verdict? Never had a mission been more determinedly carried out, nor such inexhaustible patience and endurance shown in the face of every conceivable hardship, indignity, and danger--all of which were counted by the sufferer as naught compared with the inexpressible pleasure of achieving something of the task he had been despatched to accomplish. When he thus made up his mind to return to the coast, Park had followed the Niger a distance of over eighty miles from Sego, finding that it still maintained its easterly course. In addition, he gathered from various traders the fact that it continued in the same direction for four days’ journey more, when it expanded into a lake of considerable size, named Dibbie, or “The Dark Lake.” From Dibbie (Debo) the Niger was said to divide into two branches, enclosing a large tract of land called Jinbala, and uniting again after a north-easterly course near Kabra, the “port” of Timbuktu. From Jenné to the latter place the distance by land was twelve days’ journey. From Kabra, Park does not seem certain--at least he does not make it clear--what course the Niger took, though he correctly enough states that at the distance of eleven days’ journey it passes to the south of Haussa (probably what is now known as Birni-n-Kebbi, a large town in Gandu, one of the Haussa States). Beyond this nothing further was known. It seems evident, however, that Park confounded the course of the Niger with that of its great eastern tributary the Benué, as had most of the geographers before him; and so was led astray from seeking for its natural termination in the Atlantic. CHAPTER XIII. _THE RETURN THROUGH BAMBARRA._