Reviewing what he had seen commercially, he found that slaves, gold, and ivory, beeswax and honey, hides, gums, and dye woods, constituted the whole catalogue of exportable commodities. Of other products, such as tobacco, indigo, and cotton, sufficient only was raised for native consumption. He concluded, nevertheless, that “it cannot, however, admit of a doubt that all the rich and valuable productions both of the East and West Indies might easily be naturalised and brought to the utmost perfection in the tropical parts of this immense continent. Nothing is wanting to this end but example to enlighten the minds of the natives, and instruction to enable them to direct their industry to proper objects. It was not possible for me to behold the wonderful fertility of the soil, the vast herds of cattle, proper both for food and labour, and a variety of other circumstances favourable to colonisation and agriculture, and reflect withal on the means which presented themselves of a vast inland navigation, without lamenting that a country so abundantly gifted and favoured by nature should remain in its present savage and neglected state. Much more did I lament that a people of manners and dispositions so gentle and benevolent should either be left as they now are, immersed in the gross and uncomfortable blindness of Pagan superstition, or permitted to become converts to a system of bigotry and fanaticism which, without enlightening the mind, often debases the heart.” And yet which of the representatives of the two religions, Islam and Christianity, were doing the most good among the heathen according to Park’s own showing--the Mohammedans, battling against the inrushing tide of rum and gin, encouraging education, and spreading a knowledge of Allah the One God; or the Christian merchants, fomenting and deepening all the horrors of native barbarism that their trade in slaves might be kept up, and adding to the degradation of the land by the drink and firearms they gave in exchange for its people? As there was no ship in the river when Park arrived, he expected to have to wait for some months. In this, however, he was happily disappointed, for an American slave ship, the _Charlestown_, arrived on the 15th. Slaves were plentiful, and in a couple of days the cargo of human flesh and blood for the plantations of South Carolina was made up in exchange for rum and tobacco. Though the route by America was excessively circuitous, it was such a chance as Park could not afford to neglect. Accordingly, on the 17th of June he bade farewell to all his English friends, and took passage in the American vessel.