890 
PARKAS FIRST JOURNEt, 
cJovered that he had mistaken the horse road, 
and, mounting over some steep rocks, left Mr 
Park to admire his agility, and discover his own 
route. After regaining the road, he traversed 
some high rocky grounds, where the soil was 
shallow, and the rocks consisted of iron-stone and 
schistus, with nodules of white quartz. On the 
south-east he saw the mountains of Kong, which, 
he was informed, were situated in a large king- 
dom, more powerful than Bambarra. In the even- 
ing, he reached the romantic village of Kooma, 
belonging to a Mandingo merchant, by whom he 
was received with the greatest kindness, and was 
soon surrounded by a circle of curious villagers, 
who, free from the depredations of war, exhibited, 
among these natural fastnesses, much native bene- 
volence and pastoral simplicity. Next day, on his 
road to Sibidooloo, he was stripped and plundered 
of his horse, and of almost all his clothes, by some 
marauding inhabitants of Fooladoo. Mr Park 
supposed them to be elephant-hunters, but was 
soon undeceived : He begged earnestly for his 
pocket-compass, but could only obtain from them 
the worst of his two shirts, and a pair of trowsers» 
The robbers took his hat, but returned it when 
they perceived the papers in the crown of it. 
Robbed, and left naked and solitary in the wilder- 
ness, in the midst of the rainy season, above 500 
miles from the nearest European settlement, he 
