Fancy can hardly picture a situation more perilous than that of Park at this time, nor an enterprise more utterly hopeless than that which he was now to undertake. Of the Europeans who had accompanied him from the Gambia, Lieutenant Martyn and three soldiers (one of them in a state of mental derangement) were all who now survived. He was about to embark on a vast and unknown river, which might possibly terminate in some great lake or inland sea, at an immense distance from the coast; but which he hoped and believed would conduct him to the shores of the Atlantic, after a course of considerably more than three thousand miles, through the midst of savage nations, and probably also after a long succession of rapids, lakes, and cataracts. This voyage, one of the most formidable ever attempted, was to be undertaken in a crazy and ill appointed vessel, manned by a few Negroes and four Europeans! On the 16th of November the schooner being completed, and every preparation made for the voyage, Park put the finishing hand to his Journal; and in the course of the succeeding days previous to the embarkation, which appears to have taken place on the 19th, he wrote letters to his father-in-law, Mr. Anderson, Sir Joseph Banks, Lord Camden, and Mrs. Park. Those addressed to the three latter, being the most interesting, are here inserted at length, and cannot be read without considerable interest. They all of them bear strong traces of that deliberate courage without effort or ostentation, which distinguished his whole conduct; and his letter to Lord Camden breathes a generous spirit of self-devotion, highly expressive of the character and feelings of the writer. _To Sir Joseph Banks._ _Sansanding, November 16, 1805._ "MY DEAR FRIEND, "I should be wanting in gratitude, if I did not avail myself of every opportunity of informing you how I have succeeded in this enterprise. I have sent an account of each day's proceeding to Lord Camden, and have requested his Lordship to send it to you for your perusal. "With respect to my future views, it is my intention to keep the middle of the river, and make the best use I can of winds and currents till I reach the termination of this mysterious stream. I have hired a guide to go with me to _Kashna_; he is a native of Kasson, but one of the greatest travellers in this part of Africa, having visited _Miniana, Kong, Baedoo, Gotto, and Cape Corse Castle_ to the South, and _Tombuctoo, Houssa, Nyffe, Kashna, and Bornou_ towards the East. He says that the Niger, after it passes Kashna, runs directly to the right hand, or the South; he never heard of any person who had seen its termination; and is certain that it does not end any where in the vicinity of Kashna or Bornou, having resided some time in both these kingdoms.