VARIOUS ADVENTURERS 149 



pertaining to his mission. After an experimental trip, 

 Hornemann left Tripoli in November, 1799, but was lost 

 sight of for ever in the following year. 



The African Committee now held their hands for a time. 

 The inconvenience of occasional raids by the French on 

 the west coast of Africa accounts, to some extent, for 

 their inaction. But, during the truce of Amiens, when 

 a good many other projects were ready for exploitation 

 which only a time of peace could justify, the Committee 

 awakened to the reconsideration of plans for giving a 

 Geography to their unknown Continent. Sir Joseph 

 Banks told Mungo Park that the mission to Africa was to 

 be revived ; and, in the case of Government entering into 

 the plan, Park would certainly be recommended as the 

 proper person to be employed. 



Ever since his return home, in 1797, Park had been 

 dreaming of the subtle joys of travel and exploration. 

 Beside a very large circle of appreciative friends in 

 London, he had now a wife and a home in Peebles, and 

 more good friends in Edinburgh. But the quiet routine 

 of a country surgeon's life was irksome to him. His 

 mind would get unsettled with expectations of being called 

 upon to undertake fresh adventures in the desert and 

 the jungle. One such offer was actually made to him by 

 the Government, in 1798: to go out with a surveying 

 party to New Holland. As far as can be gathered from 

 his correspondence with Banks, the thing fell through on a 

 question of the terms of his remuneration. His intimacy 

 with Sir Joseph appears to have been broken by this 

 circumstance, who was a little offended at his fickleness 

 as displayed in the negotiations. It was not until the 

 autumn of 1803 that matters revived ; when Park re- 

 ceived a letter from the War Office asking him to 

 attend in London. After some little delay, and a pretence 

 of consulting his friends, he accepted the Government 

 proposal to take charge of a new expedition to Africa, 



