Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa by Park, Mungo, 1771-1806

The Alburkah proceeded up the river no farther than Attah, where Mr. Oldfield procured a considerable quantity of ivory. The greater part of the crew had been cut off by fever and dysentery, four only being fit for duty. As soon, therefore, as Mr. Oldfield heard of Mr. Lander's death, he resolved to return to the coast, which he reached in July 1834.

We have now completed the sketch of those discoveries in Central Africa, which have taken place since the time of Park, and have endeavoured to make it as interesting as our restricted limits permitted. The scenery through which we have passed has been varied and sometimes beautiful; but the beauty has been wild and uncultivated, and has been more than counterbalanced by the oft-times stern aspect of nature, darkened by the frowns of an ungenial and unhealthy sky, in too faithful keeping with the actions of savage men, cruel and revengeful, sunk in vice and immorality. The narrative has been one of suffering and untimely death; one adventurer after another has gone forth, while scarcely one has returned from his toilsome and perilous wanderings; and the melancholy list has been closed by the fate of him who had the proud honour of tracing the termination of the mysterious river. Though each has displayed high and peculiar qualities of mind, not one has surpassed him whose energy and force of character in a great measure paved the way for succeeding travellers. Yet none will have fallen in vain, inasmuch as each has done something to point out the way whereby the blessings of civilization may be conveyed to the natives of Africa. The time may yet be distant, but it will assuredly come, when commerce and enlightenment shall be conveyed by the great channel of the Niger; when slavery shall be finally and for ever destroyed; and when, above all, the same blessed influence shall pervade Central, which had already done so much good in Southern Africa; when the voice of the missionary, which has been already blessed in raising up from the ground the degraded Hotentot, shall be heard in the huts that border the great river; when the natives shall cast away their idols, and with them, those vices which degrade and sully their character.

THE END.