page_title: Mungo Park (explorer)
section_title: Second journey
hierarchical_section_title: Mungo Park (explorer) / Travels into the Interior of Africa / Second journey
caption_attribution_description: Routes of Mungo Park (explorer)
context_page_description: Mungo Park was a Scottish explorer of West Africa. After an exploration of the upper Niger River around 1796, he wrote a popular and influential travel book titled Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa in which he theorized the Niger and Congo merged to become the same river. He was killed during a second expedition, having successfully traveled about two-thirds of the way down the Niger. Park's death meant the idea of a Niger-Congo merger remained unproven but it became the leading theory among geographers. The mystery of the Niger's course, which had been speculated about since the Ancient Greeks and was second only to the mystery of the Nile source, was not solved for another 25 years, in 1830, when it was discovered the Niger and Congo were in fact separate rivers.
  If the African Association was the "beginning of the age of African exploration" then Mungo Park was its first successful explorer; he set a standard for all who followed.
context_section_description: In the autumn of 1803 Mungo Park was invited by the government to lead another expedition to the Niger. Park, who chafed at the hardness and monotony of life at Peebles, accepted the offer, but the expedition was delayed. Part of the waiting time was occupied perfecting his Arabic; his teacher, Sidi Ambak Bubi, was a native of Mogador (now Essaouira in Morocco) whose behavior both amused and alarmed the people of Peebles.
  In May 1804 Park went back to Foulshiels, where he made the acquaintance of Walter Scott, then living nearby at Ashiesteil and with whom he soon became friendly. In September, Park was summoned to London to leave on the new expedition; he left Scott with the hopeful proverb on his lips, "Freits (omens) follow those that look to them."
  Park had at that time adopted the theory that the Niger and the Congo were one, and in a memorandum drawn up before he left Britain he wrote: "My hopes of returning by the Congo are not altogether fanciful."
  On 31 January 1805 he sailed from Portsmouth for Gambia, having been given a captain's commission as head of the government expedition. Alexander Anderson, his brother-in-law and second-in-command, had received a lieutenancy. George Scott, a fellow Borderer, was draughtsman, and the party included four or five artificers. At Gorée (then in British occupation) Park was joined by Lieutenant Martyn, R.A., thirty-five privates and two seamen.
  The expedition got a late start into the rainy season and did not reach the Niger until mid-August, when only eleven Europeans were left alive; the rest had succumbed to fever or dysentery. From Bamako the journey to Ségou was made by canoe. Having received permission from the local ruler, Mansong Diarra, to proceed, at Sansanding, a little below Ségou, Park made ready for his journey down the still unknown part of the river. Helped by one soldier, the only one capable of work, Park converted two canoes into one tolerably good boat, 40 feet (12 m) long and 6 feet (2 m) broad. This he christened H.M. schooner Joliba (the native name for the Niger River), and in it, with the surviving members of his party, he set sail downstream on 19 November.
  Anderson had died at Sansanding on 28 October, and in him Park had lost the only member of the party – except Scott, already dead – "who had been of real use." Those who embarked in the Joliba were Park, Martyn, three European soldiers (one mad), a guide and three slaves. Before his departure, Park gave to Isaaco, a Mandingo guide who had been with him thus far, letters to take back to Gambia for transmission to Britain.
  The Muslim traders along this section of the Niger did not believe Park was exploring purely for intellectual curiosity but was scouting European trading routes, they saw Park as a threat to their trading dominance. They lobbied Mansong Diarra to have Park killed, and when Mansong did not, they lobbied tribes further down the river. Park understood the politics and adopted a policy of staying away from the shore towards the middle of the 2-to-3-mile-wide (3-to-5-kilometre) river while attacking anyone who came near. In the process he also avoided paying tolls/bribes to pass through each kingdom, earning the rage of local rulers, Moorish or not, who would send messengers ahead to the next tribe downriver that a dangerous interloper was coming their way. Furthermore Park's policy of shoot first and not engaging with locals, in some cases slaughtering significant numbers of natives using superior firepower, made the Europeans something of a pariah. Park was running a gauntlet of hostile tribes in part of his own making.
  To his wife, Park wrote of his intention not to stop nor land anywhere until he reached the coast, where he expected to arrive about the end of January 1806.
  These were the last communications received from Park, and nothing more was heard of the party until reports of disaster reached Gambia.
caption: Map of Mungo Park's journeys
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