Park had now entered the country of Manding. Sibidulu, from its position in a small valley surrounded by high rocky hills impassable to horsemen, had had the singular good fortune to escape being plundered during the numerous wars from time to time waging around it. To this happy immunity may possibly be ascribed the reception accorded to Park in his hour of need. As he entered the town the people gathered round and accompanied him in a pitying crowd to the head man of the village in order to hear his story.

While he related the circumstances of his ill treatment the native official listened with becoming gravity, and smoked his pipe the while. The narrative finished, the latter drew up the sleeve of his cloak with an indignant air, and laying aside his pipe, told the white man to sit down. “You shall have everything returned to you. I have sworn it!”

Turning to an attendant, he ordered him to bring the stranger a drink of water, and then proceed over the hills at dawn of day to inform the chief of Bammaku that the King of Bambarra’s stranger had been robbed by the people of the King of Fulahdu.

The head man did not confine himself to words or to water. A hut was given to Park, and food to eat, though the crowd which gathered round to commiserate the white man’s misfortunes could with comfort have been dispensed with.

The generosity of his reception was all the more admirable that at the time the people were suffering from semi-famine. Under these circumstances, after having waited two days in vain for the return of his horse and clothes, Park, afraid of becoming a burden to his kind host, asked permission to proceed to the next village. The head man showed no anxiety to hasten his guest’s departure, but in the end told him to go to Wonda, and remain there till news was received of his missing possessions.

Accordingly on the 30th, he proceeded to the place indicated, a small town with a mosque, where his reception by the Mansa or chief was as hospitable as at Sibidulu.

The attacks of fever which had finally compelled Park to turn back at Silla now began to return with greater violence and frequency, and little wonder either that it should be so. His solitary shirt, worn to the thinness of muslin, afforded him neither protection from the sun by day nor from the dews and mosquitoes by night. As, also, it had become unpleasantly dirty, at Wonda he set about washing it, and had to sit naked in the shade till it dried. The result was a violent attack of fever which prostrated him for nine days.

All the while he had to do his best to conceal his illness, lest his host should find him too great a nuisance, and order him to move on. To this end he tried, like sick or wounded animals, to hide himself away out of sight, usually spending the whole day lying in the corn-field, thus undoubtedly aggravating his malady.

At this time the scarcity of food was so great that women brought their children to the head man to sell for forty days’ provisions for themselves and the rest of their families.

At last messengers arrived from Sibidulu, bringing Park’s horse and clothes. To his profound dismay and disappointment the compass—which next to his notes was his most valuable possession—was broken and useless. The loss was irreparable.

The horse proving to be a mere skeleton, he was handed over as a present to his kind landlord.

Though still ill with fever, and hardly able to totter along, the traveller now resumed his weary way.

On the two succeeding days starvation added to his weakness. On the third a negro trader gave him some food, and afterwards conducted him to his house at Kinyeto. Here, as if he had not yet sufficiently run the gamut of human suffering, he must needs endure the agonies of a sprained ankle, which swelled and inflamed so that he could not set his foot to the ground. The kindly trader, however, made him welcome to stay until quite recovered, but Park did not trespass on his hospitality longer than was absolutely necessary.

In three days he was sufficiently well to be able to limp along with the assistance of a staff, and in this fashion he contrived to hobble to Jerijang, whose chief—there being no king in Manding—was considered the most powerful in the country.

Dosita was the next village reached, and here rain without and delirium within compelled him to remain one day. Recovering slightly, he set out for Mansia. The road led over a high rocky hill, and almost proved too much for the exhausted wayfarer, who had to lie down at intervals to recover. Though only a very few miles distant, it was late in the afternoon before he reached the town. Here he was given a little corn to eat, and a hut to sleep in. Evidently, however, the head man thought Park richer than he looked, and during the night made two attempts to enter the hut, being each time frustrated by the traveller’s vigilance. In the morning the latter thought it better to take French leave of such a host, and accordingly at daybreak set forth for Kamalia, a small town situated at the bottom of some rocky hills. This place he reached in the course of the afternoon.

At Kamalia, one Karfa Taura, brother of the hospitable negro trader of Kinyeto, extended a like welcome to the wayworn white man. By this time, so yellow was the latter’s skin from his repeated fevers, and so poverty-stricken his appearance, that the trader was only convinced of his nationality when on showing him a white man’s book in his possession, he found the traveller could read it. This was a Book of Common Prayer, of which Park obtained possession with no small surprise and delight.

Not too soon had some means of spiritual consolation come to him, for here he learned that the country before him—the Jallonka Wilderness, with its eight rapid rivers—was absolutely impassable for many months to come. Even then, when caravans found it difficult and dangerous, what would it be to a defenceless and destitute single man? With the knowledge that further advance at the present was hopeless, came the realisation of the fact that to utter exhaustion of outward resources was now to be added the complete loss of all inward force and strength. Exposure, hunger, toil, and fever had at last triumphed over Park’s iron constitution, and laid him low. He might still will not to die, still hope that he would yet reach the coast, still keep up his determined and sanguine spirit; but meanwhile, what could he do when his physical powers had thus failed him?

But even in that moment, when he found himself overshadowed by despair and death, and at the extreme limit of all his earthly resources, he was once again to prove that a “Protecting Providence” watched over him. In his supreme need a kind host had been provided in the person of Karfa Taura to save him from death by fever and starvation, and not only to lodge and feed him, but at the proper time to conduct him to the Gambia, whither he was going with a slave caravan.

“Thus was I delivered by the friendly care of this benevolent negro from a situation truly deplorable. Distress and famine pressed hard upon me. I had before me the gloomy wilds of Jallonkadu, where the traveller sees no habitation for five successive days. I had almost marked out the place where I was doomed, as I thought, to perish, when this friendly negro stretched out his hospitable hand to my relief.”

But neither food nor suitable shelter could stay the course of the fever. Each succeeding day saw Park weaker, each night more delirious, till at length he could not even crawl out of the hut. Six weary weeks he passed hovering between life and death—alone sustained by his intense religious beliefs and his eager hope of reaching the coast before he died. Little wonder surely that at times he spent “the lingering hours in a very gloomy and solitary manner,” while the rains dashed down remorselessly on the hut wherein he lay in the damp stifling atmosphere and semi-darkness.

At length with the passing season the rains became less frequent, and the ground in consequence more dry. With improved conditions came improved health and stronger hope of life. At times the convalescent managed to crawl to his door to sniff the fresher and more wholesome air, to bathe in the bright light, and look upon the blue heavens. It was as if he had emerged from an open grave.

Soon from the door of his hut he could totter with his mat to the grateful shade of a tamarind tree, and there enjoy the refreshing smell of the growing corn, and the varied prospect of hill and valley, field and grove around him. At other times naÏve converse with the simple natives, and half hours with his book of prayers, made glad the passing day.

Through it all Karfa Taura was ever the generous host and faithful friend, though many there were who vainly tried to turn him against his unknown guest.

Occasionally parties of slaves were conveyed through Kamalia. Once one of the unfortunate captives asked Park for food. The latter represented that he was himself a stranger and destitute. “I gave you food when you were hungry,” was the reply; “have you forgot the man who brought you milk at Karankalla? But,” added he with a sigh, “the irons were not then on my legs.” Much touched, Park recalled the incident, and instantly begged some ground-nuts for him from Karfa.

With returning health of both body and mind, Park employed himself while wearily awaiting the completion of the slave caravan in a variety of inquiries regarding articles of commerce, trade routes, &c. Among other subjects he was much interested in the slave trade. He learned the various ways in which slaves were obtained—how the natives kidnapped from neighbouring villages and petty states, or warred with each other to keep up the traffic—how parents found a source of temporary relief in times of famine by selling their children, and kings a source of revenue by disposing of their subjects or those convicted of crimes, while people unable to meet their engagements in the ordinary way paid their debts by becoming the slaves of the creditors. Of the bloodshed and ruin resulting from the unholy traffic he had himself seen much, and now heard more, while remaining blind to Europe’s share in encouraging this “great open sore” of Africa, that its merchants and planters might be enriched thereby. As for the unhappy victims of European commerce, they had a deeply rooted belief that they were to be devoured by white cannibals, and that the country across the sea was an enchanted land quite different from their own. Their usual question to Park was, “Have you really got such ground as this to set your feet upon?”

These ideas naturally caused the slaves to regard their fate at the coast with terror and horror, and to seek every opportunity of escaping.

Each day Park could see his future companions to the Gambia marched out, secured from flight by having the right leg of one attached by fetters to the left leg of another, with the additional precaution that every four men were fastened together by the necks with a strong rope. Some who were not amenable to this form of discipline had a cylinder of wood notched at each end fastened between the legs with iron bolts. At night additional fetters were put on the hands, and occasionally the prisoners were made further secure by having a light iron chain passed round their necks. Thus loaded with irons on neck, hand, and foot they were placed in batches and left to find sleep as best they could, guarded by Karfa Taura’s domestic slaves.

One pleasant sight there was of which Park never wearied—the Mohammedan schoolmaster of Kamalia, and his school of seventeen boys and girls. To him “it was not so much a matter of wonder as a matter of regret to observe that while the superstition of Mohammed has in this manner scattered a few faint dreams of learning among these poor people, the precious light of Christianity is excluded. I could not but lament,” he continues, “that although the coast of Africa had now been known and frequented for more than two hundred years, yet the negroes still remain entire strangers to the doctrines of our holy religion.... Perhaps a short and easy introduction to Christianity, such as is found in some of the catechisms for children, elegantly printed in Arabic, and distributed on different parts of the coast, might have a wonderful effect.... These reflections I have thus ventured to submit to my readers on this important subject, on perceiving the encouragement which was thus given to learning (such as it is) in many parts of Africa. I have observed that the pupils of Kamalia were most of them children of Pagans; their parents therefore could have had no predilection for the doctrines of Mohammed. Their aim was their children’s improvement.” So much indeed was education prized that the usual course was valued at the price of a prime slave.

By the beginning of the year 1797, everything was ready for departure, but on various trivial pretexts the leave-taking was put off from day to day till the approach of Rhamadan, when it was determined to wait till it was over before commencing their journey.

During the whole of the month of fast “the negroes behaved themselves with the greatest meekness and humility, forming a striking contrast to the savage intolerance and brutal bigotry which at this period characterise the Moors.”