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CHAP. VIII. 



Of the Checks to Population in different parts of Africa. 



The parts of Africa visited by Park are de- 

 scribed by him as neither well cultivated nor well 

 peopled. He found many extensive and beautiful 

 districts entirely destitute of inhabitants; and in 

 general the borders of the different kingdoms 

 were either very thinly peopled or perfectly de- 

 serted. The swampy banks of the Gambia, the 

 Senegal, and other rivers towards the coast, ap- 

 peared to be unfavourable to population, from 

 being unhealthy;* but other parts were not of 

 this description ; and it was not possible, he 

 says, to behold the wonderful fertility of the 

 soil, the vast herds of cattle proper both for la- 

 bour and food, and reflect on the means which 

 presented themselves of vast inland navigation, 

 without lamenting that a country so abundantly 

 gifted by nature should remain in its present sa- 

 vage and neglected state.f 



The causes of this neglected state clearly ap- 

 pear, however, in the description which Park 

 gives of the general habits of the negro nations. 

 In a country divided into a thousand petty states, 

 mostly independent and jealous of each other, it 



* Park's Interior of Africa, c. xx. p. 261. 4to. 

 f Id. c. xxiii. p. 312. 



