LIFE OF MUNGO PARK. 
xiii 
After a short stay at Sego (where he did not find it safe to 
remain), Park proceeded down the river to Silla, a large 
town distant about seventy or eighty miles, on the banks 
of the Niger. He was now reduced to the greatest distress, 
and being convinced by painful experience, that the ob- 
stacles to his further progress were insurmountable, he 
reluctantly abandoned his design of proceeding eastwards ; 
and came to the resolution of going back to Sego, and en- 
deavouring to effect his return to the Gambia by a different 
route from that by which he had advanced into Africa. 
On the 3d of August, 1796, he left Silla, and pursuing 
the course of the Niger, arrived at Bammakoo, the frontier 
of Bambarra, about the 23d of the same month. Here he 
quitted the Niger, which ceases to be navigable at this 
places and travelling for several weeks through a moun- 
tainous and difficult country, reached Kamalia, in the ter- 
ritory of Man ding, on the 16th of September. He performed 
the latter part of this journey on foot, having been obliged 
to leave his horse, now worn out with fatigue and unable 
to proceed farther. 
Having encountered all the horrors of the rainy season, 
and being worn down by fatigue, his health had, at dif- 
ferent times, been seriously affected. But, soon after his 
arrival at Kamalia, he fell into a severe and dangerous fit 
of sickness, by which he was closely confined for upwards 
of a month. His life was preserved by the hospitality and 
benevolence of Karfa Taura, a Negro, who received him 
into his house, and whose family attended him with the 
kindest solicitude. The same excellent person, at the time 
of Park's last Mission into Africa, hearing that a white 
