To continue our narrative of exploration we must now leave the sweltering suns and miasmatic atmosphere of Western Africa for the temperate climate and bracing breezy hillsides of southern Scotland—turning from the river dear to the geographer to the stream loved of the poet—from the Niger to the Yarrow.

The man whose mission it was to break through the isolating barriers reared by savagery and a deadly climate between the land of the negro and all outside humanising influences, must needs have an heroic cradle, and come of an heroic race. His must be the nurture of the Spartan, physically equipping him to battle with hardship and privation—his the education and upbringing which tend to all forms of noble discontent and deeds of high emprise.

Such a cradle and such a race were Ettrickdale and its peasantry. Theirs was the life of honest toil and constant self-restraint, and theirs the direct and indirect education which in the right man develops romantic instincts, and weds to a perfervid imagination stern religious convictions, intense practicality, and prosaic tenacity of purpose. Theirs were the surroundings fitted alike to mould the poet or the hero—him who should sing of the chivalry of the past, or him who should be of the chivalry of the present, in whatever field is scope for praiseworthy ambition and highest aspiration—clear-sighted vision and undaunted courage, dogged persistence and untiring perseverance, fortitude under reverses, and physical powers to endure privation.

This, then, was the heritage which Ettrickdale had to offer to her sons; and this, as one of them, the heritage of Mungo Park, the first of the knight errantry of Africa.

Of the early life of him who was destined to partially unveil the face of Africa we know but little, though that little is sufficiently significant and satisfactory.

Mungo Park was born on the 10th September 1771 in the cottage of Foulshiels, some four and a half miles from Selkirk. Foulshiels stands in the very centre of the loveliest scenery of the glen of Yarrow, facing on the opposite side of the valley the stately tower of Newark. Eastward it commands a view over the woods and groves and “birchen bowers” of the widening dale to where it merges in the valley of the Ettrick near Selkirk. Westward it fronts a magnificent panorama of hill and dale, through which curves the Yarrow in broken gleaming reaches, from the wild romantic scenery of its loch and mountain sources. To front and rear rise stately hills, their bases separated and washed by the rushing streams, their lower slopes clad with oak and fir, their upper with grass and heather, over which the winds sweep unopposed.

But if the surroundings of Park’s birthplace were grand, the cottage, of which the ruins still exist, was humble in the extreme. It was neither better nor worse than might be tenanted by shepherds of the present day in out-of-the-way places, being built substantially of whinstone and lime, and containing at the most three apartments. The building presents not a trace of ornament, not a relieving cornice, thus fitly expressing the character of its occupants, their extreme practicality, their plain honest soundness and indifference to all external graces. From such a cottage sprang a Burns, and later on a Carlyle.

Mungo was the seventh child of a family of thirteen, of whom, however, only eight reached the age of maturity. By unremitting care and hard work his father had raised himself to the position of a small farmer—how small his cottage sufficiently shows. In him, however, we have undoubtedly one of that type of Scottish fathers who will pinch his own body and double the slavery of his life in order that his children may receive a better education than he himself had, and that their minds at least may not be starved and stunted. As Park’s first biographer puts it, writing in 1816, “The attention of the Scottish farmers and peasantry to the early instruction of their children is strongly exemplified in the history of Park’s family. The diffusion of knowledge among the natives of that part of the kingdom and their general intelligence must be admitted by every unprejudiced observer; nor is there any country in which the effects of education are so conspicuous in promoting industry and good conduct, and in producing useful and respectable men of the inferior and middle classes admirably fitted for all the important offices of common life.”

It would seem that there was no school near enough to Foulshiels for the Park children in the earlier years of their life to be able to attend, since we find a resident teacher engaged to impart the necessary rudiments of education.

With maturer years Mungo was transferred to the Selkirk Grammar School, to which he probably walked each morning.

From this time we begin to get glimpses of his peculiar personality and character. It does not appear that he showed any special talent while at school, though constant in his attendance, and studious in application. We gather that he was dreamy and reserved, a great reader, a lover of poetry, and passionately fond of the quaint lore and simple minstrelsy so markedly associated with the border counties of Scotland.

His, clearly, was not the temperament which would receive its guiding impulses from the routine work of school or the precepts and instruction of schoolmasters. Such conventional influences would never have led him to Africa. His inspirations were derived from the ballads that were sung and the tales that were told by every country fireside. For him the rushing Yarrow, Newark’s ruined towers, the spreading field, the swelling hillside, and the mountain top were teachers, each with a tale to tell of bold adventure or of deadly strife.

The whole country was redolent with the romance of the half-forgotten past, with a hundred memories dear to a patriotic heart. In all around him there was something to throw a glamour over his young eager mind, something to fire his imagination and arouse eager longings to be up and doing deeds undefined, yet ever great and noble. From the stately castle, which now looked down on him in melancholy ruined majesty, brave knights of bygone days had ridden forth to fight for king and country or for love. Their day was past, but might not he in other guise emerge from his lowly cottage, and with other weapons win his golden spurs.

In what way all these vague ambitions and this spiritual fermentation was to end there was but small indication. It is given only to the few to realise in after life the romantic dreams of their youth.

At first it seems Mungo was destined by his father for the ministry, but he himself preferred medicine, to which choice no objection appears to have been made.

To acquire the rudiments of his medical education, when fifteen years of age he was placed, as was the custom of the time, as apprentice to Dr. Thomas Anderson, a surgeon in Selkirk, a gentleman whose descendants still practise the healing art in the same town. For three years he remained with the Doctor, not only acquiring a knowledge of medicine, but still further grounding himself in the classics and other branches of education at the Grammar School.

Further than this we know nothing of his life in the Anderson family, though that his time was agreeably spent we may deduce from the fact that, as we shall see later on, he some years after married Dr. Anderson’s eldest daughter.

In the year 1789 Park left Selkirk for the University of Edinburgh to complete his medical studies. Three successive sessions seems to have been all that was necessary to qualify in these days.

We are told that he was an ardent student, and distinguished among his fellows. Botany was his favourite subject, this fact being doubtless largely due to the inspiring influence of his brother-in-law, Mr. James Dickson, who from being a gardener had raised himself by his own exertions to be no common botanist and the author of some valuable and important works.

It was while still a medical student that Park came more directly in contact with Dickson, and with him he went a botanical tour in the Highlands.

Dickson did more for his young brother-in-law than inspire him with a love of botany. He was on a footing of considerable intimacy with Sir Joseph Banks, one of the chief managers of the African Association, and when Park left the University he introduced him to his influential friend, and so brought him in contact with the influences which were to make Mungo Park the first of famous African travellers.

But the time was not yet. Park had still to prepare himself practically for his great mission by widening his experience of life and travel—had still to get further bitten with the fever of unrest. Hence in 1792 we find him sailing not to Africa, but to the East, as surgeon in the East India Company’s service.

At this point he supplies us with an admirable and characteristic glimpse of himself in a letter addressed to his teacher in surgery and future father-in-law, Dr. Anderson of Selkirk. The letter is dated London, 23rd January 1793, and the following is an interesting portion:—

“I have now got upon the first step of the stair of ambition. Here’s a figure of it. (A pen and ink sketch is here given of a flight of steps with a man on the lowest.) It very nearly resembles one of Gordon’s traps which he uses in the library. Now, if I should run up the stair, you see the consequence. I must either be mortified by seeing I can get no further, or, by taking an airy step, knock my brains out against the large folio of some succeeding author. May I use my little advantage in height to enable me to perform the office of a watchman to the rest of mankind, and call to them, ‘Take care, sirs! Don’t look too high, or you’ll break your legs on that stool. Open your eyes; you are going straight for the fire.’

“Passed at Surgeons’ Hall! Associate of the Linnean Society! I walked three or four times backwards and forwards through the hall, and had actually begun to count the panes of glass in the large window, when the bell rang, and the beadle roared out, ‘Mr. Park!’ Macbeth’s start when he beheld the dagger was a mere jest compared to mine....

“I have purchased Stewart’s Philosophy to amuse me at sea. As you are in Edinburgh, you will write to me what people say of its religious character. You told me in Sandy’s (his brother Alexander presumably, who was at the time following the medical course he himself had just completed) letter that you would write me next week. I have too much to say, and therefore must speak by halves.

“The melancholy, who complain of the shortness of human life, and the voluptuous, who think the present only their own, strive to fill up every moment with sensual enjoyment; but the man whose soul has been enlightened by his Creator, and enabled, though dimly, to discern the wonders of salvation, will look upon the joys and afflictions of this life as equally the tokens of Divine love. He will walk through the world as one travelling to a better country, looking forward with wonder to the author and finisher of his faith....

“P.S.—I sail in about a month.”

“I have now reached that height that I can behold the tumults of nations with indifference, confident that the reins of events are in our Father’s hands. May you and I (not like the stubborn mule, but like the weaning child) obey His hand, that after all the troubles of this dark world in which we are truly strangers, we may, through the wonders of atonement, reach a far greater and exceeding weight of glory. I wish you may be able to look upon the day of your departure with the same resignation that I do on mine. My hope is now approaching to a certainty. If I be deceived, may God alone put me right, for I would rather die in the delusion than wake to all the joys of earth. May the Holy Spirit dwell for ever in your heart, my dear friend, and if I never see my native land again, may I rather see the green sod on your grave than see you anything but a Christian.”

Nothing noteworthy marked this voyage to Sumatra, but his stay there was by no means wasted time, since it afforded him an excellent opportunity of indulging his scientific tastes, not as the collector merely, but also and chiefly as the accurate observer.

A paper in the Linnean Transactions on eight new fishes from Sumatra is sufficient evidence both of his industry and of his scientific attainments.

Park returned to England after a year’s absence, and was now ripe for the work in store for him. It nowhere appears that so far he had even once thought of Africa as a possible field for his ambition and energies. His natural temperament, however, had been a fertile soil for the romantic ideas which his early environment had planted. His medical education had further fitted him for the work of exploration, besides bringing him more sympathetically in contact with his botanical brother-in-law, who again was to bring him within the sphere of influence of Sir Joseph Banks, and through him of the African Association. Following these various determining influences came the first taste of travel, the wider experience, and the knowledge of the good and evil of the wanderer’s life. All that remained wanting was the golden opportunity to prove in action his potential capacity for heroic service in the fields of geographical research.

The return of Park from his first voyage was the turning point in his career. At the moment there was a crisis in the affairs of the African Association. Everything they had attempted had ended disastrously, and news had just reached them of the sad death of Major Houghton. Should the task now be given up, or was it to be resumed with renewed zeal and ardour? There could be but one answer. The work begun must be continued. Surely in the end it must be crowned with success. Meantime, who was to take it up?

While the Association was thus inquiring for the man fitted to entrust with their perilous venture, Park was still undecided as to what course in life he was to pursue. With Sir Joseph Banks as a link between, there could not fail to be a speedy understanding and a mutual settlement of the questions at issue for both. The projects of the Association speedily came to Park’s ears. Here was the very work he wanted, promising opportunities to indulge in his love of travel and natural history far transcending his wildest dreams. A splendid prospect of a great work accomplished and glory won, of difficulties surmounted and fame achieved, opened up before him. Before such a chance there could be no irresolution, no doubting, no fears. His course was clear, and at once he volunteered his services, which were, on the part of the Company, as promptly and eagerly accepted as they had been offered.

Mungo Park was then twenty-four years of age.