TRAVELS IN THE INTERIOR DISTRICTS OF AFRICA:
PERFORMED IN THE YEARS 1795, 1796, AND 1797.
WITH AN ACCOUNT OF A SUBSEQUENT MISSION
TO THAT COUNTRY IN 1805.

BY MUNGO PARK, SURGEON

VOL. I 
TRAVELS IN 1795, 1796, AND 1797

JOHN MURRAY: LONDON
1816
 

The African Association of London’s previous four expeditions to explore the Niger river had failed by the time they charged Park, a Scotsman, with the commission to explore the Gambia, Senegal, and Niger rivers in 1795. He covered well over 100 miles before he fell ill in 1797 and returned back to England. His unaffected style and natural sense of storytelling in the subsequent publication of his adventures make this one of the most popular accounts of African exploration. He returned to Africa in 1805 to search for the source of the Niger in a canoe, and met great hardships both on the river and with the natives that eventually cost him his own life and the life of his men. "Until the publication of Park’s book in 1799 hardly anything was known of the interior of Africa, apart from the northeast region and coastal area. Park’s TRAVELS had an immediate success and was translated into most European languages. It has become a classic of travel literature, and its scientific observations on the botany and meteorology of the region, and on the social and domestic life of the Negroes, have remained of lasting value. Park’s career was cut short, but he made the first great practice advance in the opening-up of Central Africa. (PMM 253.)

After the publication of the TRAVELS, Park withdrew to the quiet life of a country physician. He soon became bored with this existence and returned to Africa in 1805. This time he travelled on the Niger by canoe, hoping to follow it to the mouth, but was stopped in his attempt to reach the source of the river by the rapids at Boussa. He and his companions were killed there in a fight with the natives. Fortunately, Park had earlier sent his journals to Gambia, and they were finally published in 1815.

20 x 13 cm. xx + 551 pp.

A reading or binding copy only. Front board missing, large hole in the title page. Pages dust stained. Top corner of a couple of pages scorched. Volume 1 of 2 but it is a complete account of Park's first expedition.