74 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
tlie facts ascertained by Andre Brue, governor of 
Senegal. 
Houghton, indeed, had learned much from the natives 
of the course of the Niger through the Mandingo 
country, and of the relative positions of Sego, Djenneh, 
and Timbuctoo ; but it was reserved for Mungo Park to 
fix positively, from personal knowledge, the position of 
the two first-named towns, and to furnish circumstantial 
details of the country, and the tribes who inhabit it. 
Public opinion was unanimous as to the importance 
of the great traveller’s exploration, and keenly apprecia¬ 
tive of the courage, skill, and honesty exhibited by him. 
A short time later, the English Government offered 
Mungo Park the conduct of an expedition to the interior 
of Australia ; but he refused it. 
In 1804, however, the African Society determined 
to complete the survey of the Niger, and proposed to 
Mungo Park the command of a new expedition for its 
exploration. This time the great traveller did not 
refuse, and upon the 30th of January, 1805, he left 
England. Two months later he landed at Goree. 
He was accompanied by his brother-in-law, Ander¬ 
son, a surgeon, by George Scott, a draughtsman, and by 
thirty-five artillerymen. He was authorised to enrol 
as many soldiers as he liked in his service, and was pro¬ 
vided with a credit of five hundred pounds. 
“ These resources,” says Walknaer, “ so vast in com¬ 
parison with those furnished by the African Society, 
were, to our thinking, partly the cause of his loss. The 
rapacious demands of the African kings grew in propor¬ 
tion to the riches they supposed our traveller to possess ; 
and the effort to meet the enormous drain made upon 
him, was in great part the cause of the catastrophe which 
brought the expedition to an end.” 
Four carpenters, one officer and thirty-five artillery¬ 
men, and a Mandingo merchant named Isaac, who was 
to act as guide, with the leaders of the expedition already 
mentioned, composed an imposing caravan. Mungo 
Park left Cayee upon the 27th of April, 1805, and 
reached Pisania the next day. From this place, ten 
