MR PARK'S FIRST JOURNEY 
S85 
women were often rude and troublesome by their 
solicitations for amber and beads. On the 21st 
they arrived at Fatteconda, the capital of Bondou, 
and, according to custom, presenting themselves 
at the JBentang 9 were invited to lodge at the 
house of a slatee. Mr Park was immediately 
conducted to a private conference with Aim ami 
the king, who had caused Major Houghton to be 
plundered. He was surprised that Mr Park nei- 
ther wished to purchase slaves nor gold, and de- 
sired him to return and receive provisions in the 
evening. Dreading this interview, Mr Park car- 
ried with him his umbrella, and some other arti- 
cles, as a present to his majesty, and put on his 
new blue coat, as the safest method to preserve 
it. Being conducted to the palace, a kind of cita- 
del, subdivided into courts, the various passages 
of which were guarded by centinels with muskets, 
he was introduced in form to the king, who un- 
derstood the value of the presents much better 
than the narration of the traveller ; as the design 
of travelling for curiosity, merely to view the 
country and its inhabitants, was still more incom- 
prehensible than the mechanism of the umbrella. 
But as he was going to depart, his majesty de- 
sired him to stop a little, and immediately favour- 
ed him with a specimen of African eloquence, 
equally unsatisfactory to the traveller. It com- 
menced with a panegyric on the whites, their im- 
