Mungo Park (1771–1806) was a Scottish surgeon and explorer. Encouraged by Sir Joseph Banks, he was sent by the African Association, in 1795, to explore the interior of Africa, forbidden to western traders. He is believed to have been the first European to reach the River Niger. His return was delayed by imprisonment and illness, and he did not arrive back in Scotland until December 1797, having been thought dead. He later went on a second expedition to Africa, and died there in 1806. This account of his earlier travels, published in 1799, was an immediate best-seller, with three editions in the first year. Park presents a straightforward account of his journey, together with observations about daily life in West Africa, with none of the arrogant superiority so often expressed by European travellers. The book includes a vocabulary of Mandinka words, plates and maps, and a geographical appendix.
This 1799 classic recounts an exploration of the Niger River that provided Europeans with their first reliable account of West African life. Two centuries later, it offers singular vie
Mungo Park was the original lone explorer of West Africa. The first European to reach the Niger, record its flow direction and return alive, he was considered a hero on his return. He died during his second exploration attempt inland along the Niger to discover the city of Timbuktu. Published posthumously in 1815 by the African Institution, which had sponsored his journey, a biography, personal letters and the account of the rescue team sent to discover his fate accompany Park's own journal of the expedition. The journals and letters are a fascinating description of the constant dangers and thrill of the age of exploration. Battling adverse weather, local hostility, tropical diseases and the death of nearly all his party including his brother-in-law, Park writes 'I would still persevere; and if I could not succeed in the object of my journey, I would at least die on the Niger.'
