98

PARK REACHES THE NIGER.

the inhabitants, who laughed heartily at his appearance, and especially at his driving his horse before him. "He has been at Mecca," said one "you may see that by his clothes ;" another asked him if his horse was sick; while a third express. ed a wish to purchase it; "so that, I believe," to use his own words," the very slaves were ashamed to be seen in my company." But he was now amply rewarded for his sufferings in receiving the gratifying intelligence that, early on the next day, he would see the long-sought Niger, which the negroes called Joliba, or the Great Waler. At eight o'clock he saw the smoke over Sego.

"As we approached the town,” he says, “I was fortunate enough to overtake the fugitive Kaartans, to whose kindness I had been so much indebted in my journey through Bambarra. They readily agreed to introduce me to the king; and we rode together through some marshy ground, where, as I was anxiously looking round for the river, one of them called out, Geo affili' (see the water); and looking forward, I saw with infinite pleasure the great object of my mission, the long-sought and majestic Niger, glittering to the morning sun, as broad as the Thames at Westminster, and flowing slowly to the eastward. I hastened to the brink, and, having drank of the water, lifted up my fervent thanks in prayer to the Great Ruler of all things for having thus far crowned my endeavours with

THE CITY OF SEGO.

99

CHAPTER IX.

The City of Sego.-Conduct of the King of Bainbarra towards Park. The Traveller's Distress, and the Kindness of a Negro Woman towards him.-The King's Present to him.-His Progress Eastward.-His narrow Escape from a Lion.-His Arrival at Silla.-His Resolution not to proceed farther.

[1796.]

PARK had accomplished one of the great objects of his expedition, in penetrating to the Niger, and it now became his design to follow the course of that river until he should reach the far-famed city of Timbuctoo. For this purpose he was desirous of an interview with the King of Bambarra, and as the royal residence at Sego was upon the southern side of the river, it was necessary for him to cross it.

There He waited two hours at the ferry in vain. were three different places of embarcation, and the ferrymen were very diligent and expeditious; but there was a crowd of people passing over, and he sat down upon the bank of the river till an opportunity should offer. He describes the city of Sego as consisting, properly speaking, of four towns, two on the north bank of the Niger, called Sego Korro and Sego Boo; and two on the southern bank, called Sego Soo Korro and Sego See Korro. The houses were built of clay, of a square form, with flat roofs; and some of them had two stories, and many were whitewashed. The nuin

100

PARK'S FORLORN SITUATION.

ber of inhabitants he estimates at 30,000. "'The view of this extensive city," he says, "the numerous canoes upon the river, the crowded population, and the cultivated state of the surrounding coun. try, formed altogether a prospect of civilization and magnificence which I little expected to find in the bosom of Africa."

While Park was waiting to cross the river, the people who had crossed carried information to the king that a white man was waiting for a passage, and coming to see him. One of the chief men was directly sent over to tell our traveller that he must not presume to cross till he received the royal permission; and the messenger therefore advised him to lodge for the night at a neighbouring village. When Park reached this village, he found that no one would give him shelter. "I was regarded," he says, "with astonishment and fear, and was obliged to sit all day without victuals in the shade of a tree; and the night threatened to be very uncomfortable, for the wind rose, and there was great appearance of a heavy rain; and the wild beasts are so very numerous in the neighbourhood, that I should have been under the necessity of climbing up the tree and resting among the branches." But from this forlorn expedient he was happily saved by the humanity of a poor woman, whose kindness and benevolence towards him he has recorded in touching language.

"About sunset," he says, "as I was preparing to pass the night in this manner, and had turned my horse loose that he might graze at liberty, a woman, returning from the labours of the field, stopped to observe me; and, perceiving that I was weary and lejected, inquired into my situation,

BENEVOLENCE OF A NEGRO WOMAN. 101

which I briefly explained to her; whereupon, with looks of great compassion, she took up my saddle and bridle, and told me to follow her. Finding that I was very hungry, she said that she would procure me something to eat; she accordingly went out, and returned in a short time with a very fine fish, which, having caused to be half broiled upon some embers, she gave me some supper. The rites of hospitality being thus performed towards a stranger in distress, my worthy benefactress (pointing to the mat, and telling me I might sleep there without apprehension) called to the female part of her family, who had stood gazing at me all the while in fixed astonishment, to resume their task of spinning cotton, in which they continued to employ themselves great part of the night. They lightened their labour by songs, one of which was composed extempore; for I was myself the subject of it. It was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a sort of chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words literally translated were these: The winds roared, and the rains fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. He has no mother to bring him milk; no wife to grind his corn.' Chorus, Let us pity the white man; no mother has he,' &c. Trifling as this recital may appear to the reader, to a person in my situation the circumstance was affecting in the highest degree. I was oppressed with such unexpected kindness, and sleep fled from my eyes. In the morning 1 presented my compassionate landlady with two of the four brass buttons which remained on my waist. coat, the only recompense I could make her."

6

6

102

OBSTACLES TO PARK'S PROGRESS.

After Park had been two days at this village, a messenger arrived from King Mansong, announcing the monarch's pleasure that he should depart forthwith from the vicinity of Sego, and presenting him with a bag of five thousand kowries,* as "Mansong wished to relieve a white man in distress ;" the messenger added, that he had orders, if Park's intentions were really to proceed to Jenné, to guide him as far as Sansanding. Our traveller was at first puzzled to account for this behaviour of the king; he had afterward, however, reason to believe that Mansong would have admitted him to an interview at Sego, but was apprehensive of not being able to protect him against the blind and inveterate malice of the Moorish inhabitants.

His new guide spoke strongly to him of the dangers which he would incur in advancing farther to the eastward; telling him that Jenné, though nominally a part of the Bambarran dominions, was in fact a city of the Moors; that the places beyond it were in a still greater degree under their influence; and that Timbuctoo, "the great object of his search," was altogether in the possession of that savage and merciless people, who allowed no Christian to live there.† But Park's enterprise was of

* These are small shells, which pass current as money in the interior of Africa. Park reckoned two hundred and fifty of them as equal to one shilling sterling: where provisions were cheap, one hundred would purchase a day's food for himself and corn for his horse.

Park was afterward told by a venerable old negro, that when he first visited Timbuctoo, he took up lodgings at a sort of public inn, the landlord of which, when he conducted him into his hut, spread a mat upon the floor and laid a rope upon it, saying, "If you are a Mussulman, you are my friend, sit down; but if you are a Kafir, you are my slave, and with this rope I will lead you to market."