Mr. Park's Journey Into Africa. 239 



Jhea toulou and gold duft. Leaving, this place early next 

 morning, he proceeded to a town called Nyara, and from 

 thence to Modibao, a delightful place on the banks of the 

 river, which is here very broad, and enlivened with many 

 fmall and verdant iflands, all of them flocked with cattle 

 and crowded with villages. Here he was compelled to -fet 

 off again abruptly, for fear of the Moors, the dooty or chief 

 man giving him a guide to Kea •, but his horfe, which had 

 been long reduced to a mere fkeleton, dropped on the road, 

 and he was obliged to quit him. At Kea he embarked in % 

 fifhing canoe, and was landed in fix hours at Silla, a large 

 town on the fouthern fide of the Niger. At this place the 

 dooty was nearly as favage as the Moors, and it was with 

 great difficulty our traveller could get fhelter for the night. 

 He was now convinced by painful experience, that the ob- 

 ftacles to his farther progrefs were infurmountable, and that 

 in attempting to reach Jenne, unlefs under the proteftion of 

 fome men of weight and influence among the Moors, which 

 he had no poffible means of obtaining, he mould facrifice 

 himfelf to no purpofe •, for his difcoveries would perifh with _ 

 him. He confidered at the fame time, that by returning to 

 Gambia in a different route, he might ftill promote in fome 

 degree the purpofe of his miffion ; for, having difcovered the 

 Niger at a great diftance from its head, he fhould be adding 

 confiderably to the geography of Africa, in tracing this myf- 

 terious river up the ftream to its fource. Onthefe and fimilar 

 confiderations Mr. Park determined to return to Sego, and, 

 proceeding from thence along the banks of the river, truft 

 for his fupport to the hofpitality of the negroes in the fouth- 

 ern itates, out of the reach of Moorifh fanaticifm and malice. 

 The town of Silla, from which Mr. Park began his return 

 homewards, is within two fhort days journey of Jenne', 

 which is fituated on an ifland in the river. At the diftance 

 of two days more the river empties itfelf into a confiderable 

 lake, called Dibbie or the Dark Lake 5 concerning the extent 



of 



