Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, by Mungo Park. Edited with an Introduction by Kate Ferguson Marsters.
“At the age of twenty-four, Park had set out for the interior of Africa with an umbrella, a horse a few trade goods, two days’ worth of provisions, and a basic pair of everything else...
"When he reappeared eighteen months later, clothed in rags and carrying only his hat stuffed full of notes from his original outfit, he was greeted as one who had risen from the dead.”
Mungo Park was a lanky, reserved Scottish physician with wanderlust in the 1700s. Provided an introduction to Sir Joseph Banks, he was chosen to lead an exploratory mission, with no military or missionary goals, to find the Niger river in Africa— and a trans-continental trade route to Timbuktu.
Early on, Park lost his few traveling companions. Thus alone, he was able to observe the daily workings of life in the region. Park kept an extraordinary journal of his travels. He encountered disease, kidnapping, imprisonment, and theft— but also kindness, charity, sophisticated trade systems and literacy.
The detailed, intimate portrait he paints of pre-colonial Gambia, Senegal, and Mali— and the trade and slave routes within— is invaluable and rare.
With his return to the UK, Mungo Park became a sensation. His honest, humble depiction of his adventures, the people he encountered, and his self-awareness and honesty set the standard for travel writing hence.
Since it was first published in 1799, Mungo's diaries directly influenced Wordsworth, Melville, Conrad, Hemingway, and T. C. Boyle— talk about a legacy!
Superbly narrated by actor Steven Brand who was born in Dundee Scotland, and spent his childhood in Africa. Perfect. You may know him as The Scorpion King's Memnon.
--Willow Pennell
