212 Dr Brown on the Correspondence between Mr Park 
ly so, when we have undoubted authority for believing, that he 
went out under the firm persuasion of the Congo being the out- 
let of the Niger, and which his queries to me clearly insinuate. 
But thinking no doubt, that, by descending the river, he would 
save two-thirds of the delay and fatigue of the navigation ; and 
erroneously judging, perhaps, that his splendid equipment (as 
applied to Africa) would make an impression on the simple na- 
tives, he suffered himself to be deluded into that fatal security 
which, in all probability, has proved his ruin. When his going 
out in the old route, with a suite of fifty persons, under the im- 
posing colour of embassy, was first announced to the public, I 
immediately, without consulting an oracle, predicted the tragic 
fate of the whole party ; and am quite astonished that Mr 
Park, who has delineated the Negro and Moorish character 
with so much truth and feeling, should have been so deluded as 
not to foresee the accumulated perils of such an adventure. In 
no part of Africa (Dahomy excepted) have I ever seen or heard 
of any thing like pomp or ceremony observed in the intercourse 
between native princes. Besides, when a number of men are 
seized with an endemic, (a disorder which invariably attacks 
Europeans in fifteen or twenty days after their arrival on the 
coast of Africa), their numbers, for they must necessarily 
have been crowded in a small space, instead of affording mu- 
tual aid, or inspiring confidence, only Increase the viru- 
lence of the disease ; and the intrepid hardy individual, who 
might singly, perhaps, have withstood the attack, seeing his 
comrades fall around him, sinks in despondency and shares 
their fate. Mr Park is a strong instance of this, and shews 
what privations, dangers, and difficulties may be surmounted by 
enthusiasm and perseverance ; and yet, with a large share of 
these essentials, and a robust constitution to boot, even he 
would often have fallen a victim to hunger, cruelty, and sick- 
ness, but for a protecting Providence, and three or four good 
Samaritans who administered to his wants. So that, in every 
point of view, he has been wrong in thus commencing his 
journey ; for, if the natives marvelled so much at his singly en- 
countering so many difficulties and dangers, ‘‘ far from his mo- 
ther and wife, who should grind his corn ;” asking of hiiUs if 
