290 EARLY EXPLORERS OF AFRICA 



W'lien he was prohil)ited by the King of Bambarra from crossin.c: the 

 Xij4cr, and ordered to i)ass the night in a (Hstant village, none of the 

 inhabitants would receive him into their houses, and he was pre- 

 paring to lodge in the branches of a tree. Exhausted with hunger 

 and fatigue, and un))rotected from a storm, he was relieved by a 

 woman returning from the labors of the field. He was kindly invited 

 to her hut, and was most carefully tended. The other women light- 

 ened their labor by songs, one of which, at least, must have beenf 

 extempore, for Park himself was the subject of it. It was sung by one 

 of the young women, the others joining in the chorus. The air was 

 sweet and plaintive; and the words, literally translated, were: "The 

 winds roared, and the rains fell. The poor white man, faint and 

 wearv, came and sat under our tree. He has no mother to bring h'im 

 milk; no wife to grind his corn. Chorus. — Let us pity the white man; 

 no mother has he, etc., etc.'' 



John Louis Rurckhardt, born in Switzerland in 1794, prepared 

 himself for African travel by studying the language and manners of 

 the Arabs, and in 181 2 journeyed U]) the Nile almost to Dongola, and 

 afterwards, taking the part of a poor Turkish trader of Syria, trav- 

 ersed the deserts of Nubia as far as Suakim on the Red Sea. So thor- 

 ough had been his studies, that when his Tslamism was questioned he 

 passed an examination in the Mohammedan faith before two learned 

 jurists, who pronounced him to be a very faithful and very learned 

 Musselman. Unfortunately, when he was about to set out to join a 

 caravan for Fezzan with the purpose of exploring the source of the 

 Niger, he died at Cairo, April 15, 1817. He was the first modern 

 traveler to penetrate to Shendy in the Soudan, the Meroe of ancient 

 times, where he gained exact information about the slave trade in that 

 quarter. The Mohammedans performed his obsequies with great 

 splendor, as a distinguished follower of their faith. 



Among other notable travelers was Colonel Dixon Denham, born 

 in London in 1786, who took part in 1823 with Captain Clapperton 

 and Doctor Oudney in an expedition to Central Africa. He was a 

 man well adapted in every way for such labors, and it was mainly due 

 to him that permission was obtained from the Sultan of Fezzan for 

 the expedition to cross the desert to Lake Tsad. He explored the 

 region around this lake, and afterwards joined an Arab military expe- 



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