AFRICAN EXPLORERS OF TEE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 69 
of ill-will, lie sent him a bag containing 5000 cowries, 
of the value of about a pound sterling, to buy provisions. 
The messenger sent by the king was to serve as guide 
as far as Sansanding. Protest and anger were alike im¬ 
possible ; Mungo Park could no nothing but follow the 
orders sent. Before reaching Sansanding, he was present 
at the harvest of vegetable butter, which is the produce 
of a tree called Shea. 
“ These trees,” says the narrative, “ grow in great 
abundance all over this part of Bambara. They are not 
planted by the natives, but are found growing naturally 
in the woods ; and, in clearing land for cultivation, every 
tree is cut down but the shea. The tree itself very 
much resembles the American oak ; the fruit—from the 
kernel of which, after it has been dried in the sun, the 
butter is prepared by boiling in water—has somewhat 
the appearance of a Spanish olive. The kernel is im¬ 
bedded in a sweet pulp, under a thin green rind, and the 
butter produced from it, besides the advantage of keep¬ 
ing a whole year without salt, is whiter, firmer, and, to 
my palate, of a richer flavour than the best butter I ever 
tasted from cows’ milk. It is a chief article of the inland 
commerce of these districts.” 
Sansanding, a town containing from eight to ten 
thousand inhabitants, is a market-place much frequented 
by the Moors, who bring glass-ware from the Mediter¬ 
ranean ports, which they exchange for gold-dust and 
cotton. Mungo Park was not able to remain at this 
place, for the importunities of the natives and the per¬ 
fidious insinuations of the Moors warned him to continue 
his route. His horse was so worn out by fatigue and 
privation that he felt obliged to embark on the river 
Djoliba or Niger. 
At Mourzan, a fishing village upon the northern 
bank of the river, everything combined to induce Park 
to relinquish his enterprise. The further he advanced 
to the eastward down the river, the more he placed him¬ 
self in the power of the Moors. The rainy season had 
commenced, and it would soon be impossible to travel 
otherwise than by boat. Mungo Park was now so poor 
