INTRODUCTION. ix 



that if this should turn out to be the fact, " considered in 

 a commercial point of view, it is second only to the dis- 

 covery of the Cape of Good Hope ; and in a geographical 

 point of view, it is Cv^rtainly the greatest discovery that 

 remains to be made in this world." 



Park's opinion, it may be said, is entitled to no greater 

 weight, on this point, than that of any other person who 

 had given his attention to the subject ; and so, it appears. 

 Major Rennell thougiit, who gave him no encouragement 

 to hope for the confirmalion of this new hypothesis. But 

 the impression which the facts stated by Mr. Maxwell, and 

 his reasoning on those facts, had made on Park's mind 

 previous to his leaving England, so far from being weak- 

 ened, appear to have gathered strength on his second 

 progress down the river ; and it can hardly be doubted, 

 that the unknowMi termination of the streau), and of his 

 own journey, was the unceasing object of his anxious 

 inquiries ; the result of which was, as we are told by his 

 able and accurate biographer, that " he adopted Mr. 

 Maxwell's sentiments relative to the termination of the 

 Niger in their utmost extent, and persevered in that opinion 

 to the end of his life;" — perhaps he ought rather to have 

 said, " to the day of his departure from Sansanding." 

 That no alteration of opinion in this respect had taken 

 place, is quite clear from several expressions in his letters 

 from the Niger, addressed to Lord Camden, to Sir Joseph 

 Banks, and to his wife, in all of which he talks confidently 

 of his reaching England by the way of the West Indies ; 

 not by a painful jtjurney back by land to the Senegal or 

 the Gambia, but by arriving at some other and more dis- 

 tant part of the western coast. This is rendered still more 



c 



