On the 22nd of May 1795, Mungo Park left England on board the Endeavour, an African trader. On the 21st of the following month he landed at the mouth of the river Gambia.

Bathurst, the present seat of government for the Gambia basin, was not then in existence, with its present busy European community and thriving native population, its imposing public buildings and well laid out streets. The native town of Jillifri on the north bank, and a little way up the river, was the first place of call in the early trading days of the Gambia merchants.

From Jillifri the Endeavour ascended the river to Jonkakonda.

The view which opened up before Park as he proceeded was neither attractive nor promising. The river flowed seaward deep and muddy, its banks covered with impenetrable forests of mangrove, forming when the tide was out a horrible expanse of swamp. The air was thick with a sickening haze, charged with the poisonous exhalations from the foetid mud engendered by heat and moisture. Here and there only, a group of cocoa-nuts, or an isolated bombyx (silk-cotton tree) relieved the dreary monotony, and gave a momentary pleasure to the eye.

Behind the mangrove swamps the country spread out in a level plain, “very generally covered with woods, and presenting a tiresome and gloomy uniformity to the eye; but although nature has denied to the inhabitants the beauties of romantic landscapes, she has bestowed on them with a liberal hand the more important blessings of fertility and abundance.”

At Jonkakonda, which seems to have been one of the chief trading stations on the river, Park left the Endeavour, and proceeded to the factory of Pisania, a few miles further on.

In Dr. Laidley, the agent in charge, for whom he brought letters, Park found not only a generous host, but also a thoroughly competent adviser, and for several succeeding months the merchant’s house and wide experience were alike at his disposal.

The objects to be attained by his expedition were—To reach the river Niger by such route as might be found most convenient; to ascertain its origin, course, and if possible its termination; to visit the chief towns in its neighbourhood, but more particularly Timbuktu and those of the Haussa country.

Park’s ardent enthusiasm was ever tempered with the caution and prudent practical character of his race. Like an old campaigner he set about learning what was ahead of him, and otherwise preparing for his difficult and dangerous task. The Mandingo language had to be acquired, that he might come into more sympathetic touch with the natives, and be more independent of interpreters, ever a source of profound danger, and often the greatest obstacle to the advance of the explorer into unknown countries. In addition inquiries had to be made regarding routes, the dangers to be avoided, and the general condition of travel in these parts. Without such information it was clear to him that he would be as a blind man walking in a country beset with a thousand pitfalls.

But while thus preparing for his task, Park was not oblivious to what was more immediately around. We get glimpses of him making natural history collections by day, and taking astronomical observations by night. In particular he occupied himself in getting up the details of the trade of the Gambia. Since the time when Stibbs had ascended the river in the vain hope of reaching the Niger, a considerable change had come over the commerce of the region. The fancied wealth of Timbuktu had not been tapped, but the commodities of the countries within reach of the river had proved no inconsiderable source of profit. In the year 1730 we find one factory alone consisting of a governor, deputy-governor, and two other principal officers; eight factors (hence the word factory) or trading agents, thirteen writers, twenty inferior attendants and tradesmen, a company of soldiers, and thirty-two negro servants, not to speak of the crews of various sloops, shallops, and boats. From that date, however, competition set in, till at the end of the century the gross value of British exports had fallen to £20,000.

It is worthy of note that even in Park’s time the chief article of export is slaves. Accustomed as we are in these days to denounce in the strongest terms this vile traffic, and to brand as the most degraded and brutal of their race those who engage in it, it is difficult to realise that less than a century ago we ourselves were the chief traffickers in human flesh and blood. How little this horrible trade touched the conscience of the individual or of the country at large is sufficiently shown by Park’s own narrative. We seek there in vain for a word of condemnation, or the indication of a consciousness that there was any iniquity in it. Not, be it noted, for lack of knowledge of the attendant cruelties or even through lack of pity for the victims. On the contrary, he describes “the poor wretches while waiting shipment kept constantly fettered two and two together, and employed in the labours of the field; and, I am sorry to add, very scantily fed, as well as harshly treated.”

Later on he accompanied a slave caravan on its way to the coast. With simple naturalness he tells the whole story of the horrors of the route, describing the fetters and chains, the frightful marches, with heavy loads, under a sweltering sun, and with starvation rations; the whip mercilessly applied to the weary to stimulate them to further exertions, and the knife placed to the throat of the hopelessly exhausted, at once to rid them of pain and their drivers of a burden—“an operation I did not wish to see, and therefore marched on.”

He is quite aware that all these horrors are perpetrated that a European market may be supplied. He knows also what has preceded the slave path, and yet, incredible as it may seem, not one indignant protest is drawn from him, not one appeal to Christian Europe, not even a word of commendation of the work already inaugurated for its suppression. Quite the opposite, in fact, on which point let Park speak for himself. “How far it (slavery) is maintained and supported by the slave traffic, which for two hundred years the nations of Europe have carried on with the natives of the coast, it is neither within my province nor in my power to explain. If my sentiments should be required concerning the effect which a discontinuance of that commerce would produce on the manners of the natives, I should have no hesitation in observing that in the present unenlightened state of their minds my opinion is, the effect would neither be so extensive or beneficial as many wise and worthy persons fondly expect.”

The wonder of the thing is intensified, to our mind, when we reflect on the deep religious nature of Park, his genuine kind-heartedness, his noble ambitions, and his appreciation of all that is sweet in human nature. The story is pregnant with meaning as to the influence of our environment in opening or shutting our eyes to what is going on around us.

But while Britain was then awakening to a sense of its guilt, and preparing to purge itself of the unholy traffic, we find from Park’s notes that a new trade, destined to have almost as terrible consequences, was already established. Europe, he tells us, took from the Gambia chiefly slaves, and gave in return spirits and ammunition. For over two hundred years the unfortunate natives of Africa had been treated as wild creatures, the lawful prey and spoil of the higher races. The mother was tempted to sell her child, and the chief his subjects. Village fought against village, and tribe against tribe, that American plantations might be tilled. As wild beasts and things accursed the negroes were shot down in myriads, in myriads they perished on the road, in myriads were transported to a life of shame and misery. And now, when a new order of things was about to be instituted, there had commenced another hundred years of disgraceful commerce to complete the work of brutalising the West Coast negro, of blighting all elevating impulses, and suppressing all habits of industry, transforming him into what he is to-day—the most villainous, treacherous, and vicious being to be found in all Africa.

Thanks to the slave trade in past centuries, and the gin traffic in the present, our West Coast Settlements, instead of being bright jewels in the imperial crown of Britain, are at this day little better than standing monuments to her disgrace. Happily the closing years of this century are showing signs of an awakened public conscience. Governments, companies, and private merchants alike are taking a higher view of their responsibilities to barbarous races, and before another half century has come and gone we may hope to see the vile monster badly scotched if not killed.

But while we gather from Park that in his day the slave trade was carried on by British merchants without a qualm of conscience, and that already gunpowder and gin formed the staple articles of barter for human flesh and blood, it is hardly less noteworthy that Islam was steadily making its beneficent influence felt throughout the whole land. He tells us that the inhabitants were divided into two great classes—the Sonakies or spirit drinkers, and the Bushreens or Mohammedans: the former, pagans sinking deeper and deeper in the scale of humanity under the degrading influence of European intercourse and commerce; the latter ever rising upward, adopting decent dress and decent behaviour, building mosques and establishing schools, and specially attempting to stem the flood of vile spirits poured into the country by Christian merchants.

We have in a previous chapter alluded to the mighty revolution produced by Islam in the Central Sudan. Here we are only at the missionary outposts. Further inland, as we follow the footsteps of Park, we shall see more and more of the good work Mohammedanism had accomplished in Central Africa.

Meanwhile it was not all study and observation with the young explorer. He had to go through a seasoning process of an unpleasant nature. Having on one occasion imprudently exposed himself to the night dew, he caught a fever, and while recovering had a second attack, which kept him a prisoner for some additional weeks.

Thanks to the care of Dr. Laidley no evil consequences followed, while “his company and conversation beguiled the tedious hours during that gloomy season (the rains): when suffocating heats oppress by day, and when the night is spent by the terrified traveller in listening to the croaking of frogs, of which the numbers are beyond imagination, the shrill cry of the jackal, and the deep howling of the hyena—a dismal concert interrupted only by the roar of such tremendous thunder as no person can form a conception of but those who have heard it.”