Having thus been successful in reaching the banks of the long-sought Niger, Park would have pursued his journey along them so as to ascertain its farther course, and even trace it to its termination; but his entire destitution of everything necessary for such an enterprise, and the reports which he received of the bigotry of the Moors who ruled in the districts through which he must pass, prevented him from advancing farther than Silla, a town considerably to the east of Sego. Accordingly, having collected all the information he could respecting the course of the river beyond this point—having done all that he could towards the settlement of the question of the course of the Niger—having ascertained the existence of large trading cities in the interior of Africa, some of which he had visited, and the position of three others of which (namely, Jenné, Timbuctoo, and Houssa) he had learnt by accurate inquiry—having, moreover, accumulated a vast mass of information respecting the manners, customs, and social condition of the natives of Central Africa—Park returned to the coast along the banks of the Niger, and consequently by a route different from that which he had adopted on his journey inland. He reached Pisania on the 10th of June, 1797, having thus been absent twenty-one months in the interior of Africa. He arrived in London on Christmas Day in the same year; was received with great enthusiasm by all classes; prepared the narrative of his journey for publication; and at length, in 1800, having in the meantime married, he settled as a medical practitioner in Peebles.
Park's success gave an impulse to the spirit of discovery, and two attempts were made shortly after his return to follow up what he had begun. 'A German, named Hornemann, undertook to penetrate into the continent by way of Egypt, and succeeded in reaching Fezzan, whence he wrote, in April, 1800, to England; but no particulars relative to his future history are known. He was never again heard of till 1824, when Captain Clapperton, who followed the same route with a better issue, learnt that the German traveler had succeeded in penetrating from Fezzan to Nyffee, or Nouffie, on the Niger, where he fell a victim to dysentery. Hornemann's papers had been all accidentally burnt.
In 1804, another enterprising spirit, Mr. Nicholls, endeavored to enter the African interior from the Calabar coast, in the Gulf of Guinea, but, at the very outset of his journey, he also perished from the pestilential fever of those latitudes.' At length Mr. Park—who, notwithstanding the public respect and domestic comfort which he enjoyed in the situation in which he had settled down, still hankered after a life of wandering in Africa, avowing, it is said, to Sir Walter Scott, who was one of his most intimate friends, that he preferred it to any other—consented, on the invitation of government, to undertake a second journey. 'All requisite preparations for the enterprise were completed before the end of January, and on the 30th of that month 1805, Park set sail from Portsmouth, in the Crescent transport, taking on board with him from the dockyards of that place four or five artificers.' He was accompanied also by his brother-in-law, Mr. Anderson, and a friend, Mr. Scott. When, on the 21st of March 1805, the transport anchored in the Goree Roads, near the mouth of the Gambia, and 'Mr. Park's purposes were made known here, almost every man of the garrison volunteered his services for the expedition. The traveler selected thirty-five able-bodied men, and also accepted the offered
