The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa, in the Year 1805: Together with Other Documents, Official and Private, Relating to the Same Mission, to Which Is Prefixed an Account of the Life of Mr. ParkPark, Mungo
History
The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa, in the Year 1805: Together with Other Documents, Official and Private, Relating to the Same Mission, to Which Is Prefixed an Account of the Life of Mr. Park
Park, Mungo
Africa -- Discovery and exploration
To this it may be added, that since the time of the original reports
respecting Park's death in 1806, no circumstance has occurred to bring
that fact into doubt; if we except a few transient rumours relative to
_white men_ stated to be in remote parts of the interior of Africa,
which have led some persons to suppose that Park may be still in
existence. Several surmises of this kind (for they are entitled to no
higher appellation) have from time to time been circulated, and have
found their way into newspapers and public journals; although the
slightest enquiry would have shewn that they were entitled to no credit
or attention. They would commonly be found to originate from loose and
indistinct communications received from some of the settlements on the
African coast, to which very slight and insignificant circumstances
might originally have given occasion. A Moor or an Asiatic, the colour
of whose skin differs by a few shades from that of the native Africans,
would be described by them as a stranger or white man. The _hearsay_
accounts of the appearance of such a person in the interior of Africa
would afford ample materials for credulity and exaggeration; and might
easily give rise to reports and assertions the most unfounded and
extravagant.
Upon the whole there seems to be no reasonable ground of doubt with
regard to the fact either of Park's death or of its having happened in
the manner described in Isaaco's Journal. The first of these may be
considered as morally certain, the latter as highly probable. But the
exact time when this event took place and the circumstances attending
it, are left in great obscurity; partly from a general want of
distinctness and precision in the narrative; but principally because the
particulars related, depend altogether upon the unsupported testimony of
a slave, (represented as the only survivor of those who were with Park
at the time of his death,) from whom the information was obtained at an
interval of three months after the transaction. It is obvious that no
reliance can be placed on a narrative resting upon such authority; and
we must be content to remain in ignorance of the precise circumstances
of Park's melancholy fate. But that he was attacked by the natives on
his voyage from Sansanding eastwards, that he was overpowered by
numbers, and that he perished on his passage down the Niger, cannot
reasonably be doubted.
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