Mr. Park's Journey hilo Africa. lg$ 



Hambara; from whence, pafiing as a traveller from the 

 Moorifh country, he might venture, by a circuitous journey; 

 to Bambara. To this advice being; obliged to fubmit or 

 give np all thoughts of prolecuting his journey in fearch of 

 the Niger, the king, as the laft proof of his kindnefs, fent 

 eight horfemen to convey him in fafety to Jarra, the frontier 

 town of the Moors, where he arrived on the 18th of Fe- 

 bruary 1 796. In the courfe of his journey he patted through 

 a village not far from Jarra, called Simbing, from whence 

 Major Houghton wrote his laft difpatch with a pencil. 



The territories which our traveller had hitherto exploredj 

 being very generally clothed with native woods, prefented to 

 the eye the appearance of great unifortnity. In his pfogrefs 

 eaftward the country rofe into hills, and the foil varied to a 

 confiderable degree ; but wherever the land was cleared, great 

 natural fertility was obferved. Bondou in particular may 

 literally be pronounced " a land flowing with milk and 

 Honey." Both thefe articles, together with rice and Indian 

 corn of two or three fpecies, were to be obtained at a fmall 

 expence. Of their honey, the Pagan natives make ah in- 

 toxicating liquor, much like the mead of Europe. The 

 price of a fowl in Bondou was a button, or a fmall bit of am- 

 ber ; goat's flefh and mutton were proportionably cheap ; 

 and for fix or eight amber beads Mr. Park might at any time 

 have purchafed a bullock. The domeftic animals are nearly 

 the fame as in Europe : the Guinea fowl and red partridge 

 abound in the fields 5 and the woods furnifh a fmall fpecies of 

 antelope, of which the venifon is highly and defervedly prized. 



Of the other wild animals in the Mandingo countries, the 

 moft common are, the hyaena, the panther, and the ele- 

 phant. But the natives of Africa have not yet acquired the 

 art of taming the laft-mentioned animal, notwithstanding 

 his ftrength and docility, fo as to render him Serviceable to 

 man ; and when Mr. Park told fome of them that this was 

 actually done in the countries of the Eaft, his auditors 

 laughed, and exclaimed, tf Tobauhfonnio !" A white man's 

 Oa ' lie 1 



