The Royal Society of Edinburgh
A Good Man in Africa: Mungo Park, the Niger and Late
Enlightenment Exploration
Professor Charles Withers FRSE
Tuesday 26 May 2015, Selkirk Victoria Hall, Selkirk
Report by Kate Kennedy
In the late 18th Century, the Niger Problem was a 2000-year-old two-part geographical
problem. The first part was simple: which way did the river run? West to east, or east to
west? The second was far from simple: where did the river end? In a central African lake?
Did it join the Congo? Numerous theories abounded. This mattered as a problem in
geography. And it mattered in terms of commerce, for if proven right, one theory – that the
Niger bisected Africa to join the Nile – would have allowed for commerce through the heart
of Africa. The Scots explorer Mungo Park was the first to solve, by personal and direct
observation, the first part of the Niger Problem and to live to tell others about it. He died
unsuccessfully trying to solve the second. This illustrated talk examined Park’s travels and
the making of his highly successful 1799 book and considered evidence that, at the time,
others had already solved the second part of the problem. Need Park have gone to Africa a
second time?
Scottish explorer Mungo Park was the first European to return home safely, having observed
for himself the west to east course of the River Niger in western Africa. His enduring fame
stems from this fact. Two books recount the detail of his expeditions. The first, Travels in the
Interior Districts of Africa, was published in 1799 and tells the story of a largely successful
mission. The second, Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa, published posthumously
by London solicitor John Murray in 1815, is both a biography of Park’s life and an account of
the second ill-fated 1805 expedition which resulted in his death. Professor Withers
commented that, in addition to his acclaim at the time, Park has experienced a “worldly
afterlife” through the numerous biographies, statues, plays, films and books that have
continued to be produced, commemorating his life, since his death in 1805. Furthermore,
Park and his achievements ‘travel’ differently throughout the world; in the United States his
1799 text is read as an anti-slavery tract; in Britain as an account of exploration; and in
France it is read in terms of Enlightenment sympathy.
Park was born near Selkirk in the Scottish Borders in 1771 to a farming family. He was
educated at home and at Selkirk Grammar School before studying Medicine at the
University of Edinburgh. By 1791, Park had secured a Surgical Diploma but, similarly to
many graduates, had no employment upon leaving university. In association with his
brother-in-law James Dickson, the distinguished botanist, Park spent the summer of 1792
undertaking botanical excursions in the Highlands of Scotland. Dickson’s connections with
Joseph Banks, one of the most important patrons of late-Enlightenment science and
exploration, led to Park securing the position of Assistant Surgeon on board the East Indian
Company’s ship the Worcester. He sailed to Sumatra in 1793, charged with collecting
botanical and zoological specimens. He presented his findings to Banks upon his return in
1794. This work, and experience of foreign travel, led to Banks advancing Park’s name to
the African Association in London, with a view to him taking part in west African exploration,
particularly with regard to the Niger Problem.
Professor Withers asked “why is the Niger significant?” The founding resolution of the
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African Association proclaimed: “no species of information is more ardently desired or more
generally useful, than that which improves the science of Geography; and as the vast
continent of Africa, notwithstanding the efforts of the ancients, and the wishes of the
moderns, is still a great measure unexplored…”. The 2000-year-old Niger Problem was a
question of two parts: the first concerning the course of the river and whether it flowed east
to west or vice-versa; the second relating to where the river ended. Over the centuries,
nobody had agreed or confirmed either of these points and many different texts and maps
were produced supporting differing theories. Banks agreed with many leading geographers
in Britain, who purported that the Niger flowed across Africa and joined the Nile. The Niger
Problem was of interest to Joseph Banks and his contemporaries for two main reasons:
geographical curiosity and the potential commercial opportunities if circumnavigation of
Africa from Senegal in the west to Cairo in the east via the Niger and Nile were possible.
Thus, Park’s first Niger expedition had the support of the British Government, a principal
patron, and the desire to solve unanswered questions at its heart.
Park sailed for west Africa in May 1795, accompanied by two servants, and arrived a month
later. He was ill with fever for first two months and spent his convalescence learning the
local language and customs. His accounts of his travels are a mixture of personal adventure,
commentaries on the trading networks of the region and ethnographic descriptions of the
locals. He also describes how he is seen as an object of ethnographic wonder and regarded
with suspicion by some, due to his Christian beliefs. Others simply refused to believe that a
white man in Africa could be there simply to observe the course of a river. Indeed, Park was
imprisoned and threatened with death on more than one occasion. In July 1796, Park
accomplished one of the principal aims of his expedition, to determine the course of the
Niger: “I saw with infinite pleasure the great object of my mission; the long sought for,
majestic Niger, glittering to the morning sun, as broad as the Thames at Westminster, and
flowing slowly to the eastward”. Following this breakthrough, he turned west, initially
intending to explore the southern Niger, but lost his horse by inadvertently backing it down a
well, requiring him to make his return journey on foot. Park survived this journey largely due
to the kindness of an Arabic slave trader who fed and sheltered him in return for the fee of
one slave that Park would provide in the event of his own safe return. In effect, Park
enslaved himself to ensure his own safe passage. He remained with the slave trader for
about seven months before returning to the Gambia in May 1797; whereupon his return was
greeted with great joy and satisfaction as “one returned from the dead”. Park returned to
London and was reunited with his brother-in-law, Dickson, in the gardens of the British
Museum on Christmas Day in 1797.
Upon his return to Britain, Park published his experiences in his 1799 Travels in the Interior
Districts of Africa to great acclaim; selling all 1500 copies immediately, with further editions
and translations subsequently produced. He was commended for answering the first part of
the Niger Problem, with the European Magazine remarking, “a considerable portion of Africa
is now known, which hitherto has been impervious to every traveller; and to no one has the
world been so much obliged as to [this] gentleman”. Professor Withers cautioned, however,
that the initial reviews of Park’s work were based not on his text but on a published abstract
of it prepared by Bryan Edwards, a member of the African Association under Joseph Banks’
direction. Indeed, it was Edwards who assisted Park in revising his notes and improving his
style; in effect, Park wrote his account when back in Britain rather than whilst on his
expedition. Furthermore, the manuscript’s maps and geographical observations were
produced by the leading Geographer and Surveyor, James Rennell. Park comments, “Major
Rennell was pleased also to add a map of my route, constructed in conformity to my own
observations and sketches, freed from those errors which the Major’s superior knowledge
and distinguished accuracy in geographical researches enabled him to discover and
correct”. Thus, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa is not wholly Park’s book; the final
version reflects a move away from field journal to published book and incorporates the
influence of others.
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Park’s first expedition did not solve the second part of the Niger Problem; where did the river
end? Rennell’s maps within Park’s 1799 book give a clear indication of his own and Joseph
Banks’ thoughts regarding the outstanding Niger Problem. They argued that it flowed east to
west and culminated in an inland lake. They believed this to be most likely because they
held to the classical notion that a chain of mountains bisected Africa from west to east.
These appear on Rennell’s map and are known as the ‘Mountains of Cong’ in the west and
the ‘Mountains of the Moon’ in the east of the continent. These mountains did not, do not
and have never existed! Professor Withers considers that what is important is not just that
the mountains did not exist but that Rennell and his contemporaries thought that they did.
Indeed, these fictitious mountains continued to appear in some atlases until 1911. In the
minds of Rennell and Banks, because of these mountains, there was no possibility that the
Niger could flow south. This unsolved issue, and its importance to commerce, meant that the
question of solving the second part of the Niger Problem remained uppermost on the
geographic agenda following Park’s return, prompting his second expedition in 1805.
Between the expeditions, Park married and considered different career paths, before setting
up his medical practice in Peebles in 1801. During this period, he met and struck up a
friendship with Sir Walter Scott. Park, however, remained keen to return to west Africa and
in 1803 he received an invitation from the British Government to join a militarised expedition
to west Africa. He arrived in the Gambia in early 1805, accompanied by a military
attachment of 44 people. From Park’s letters and notebooks it is known that the expedition
was one of continuing struggle due to sickness and to travelling in the wet season. By
August 1805, when the expedition reached the Niger, only 12 of the group remained alive. In
September 1805, Park began preparing for the final stage of the expedition to determine the
mouth of the Niger, by canoe. He finally set sail downstream in November, writing, “I shall
set sail to the east with the fixed resolution to discover the termination of the Niger or perish
in the attempt. I have heard nothing that I can depend on respecting the remote course of
this mighty stream, but I am more inclined to think that it can end nowhere but in the sea”.
Park died before confirming these suspicions. In Bussa, where the River Niger divides at a
narrow gorge, natives attacked Park’s remaining party from the shore. It is believed Park
was drowned and although the exact reasons for the attack are unknown, it is likely that he
was short of gifts for local leaders and had probably unwittingly transgressed the customary
expectations required in order to make his safe travel eastwards. Only one member of the
party, a slave, survived. Rumours of Park’s demise reached the coast of Africa later in 1805,
but his death was not confirmed until 1811. By 1812 the notes of his expedition had been
received by British officials in the Gambia. These notes, testimony and his memoir became
the basis of John Wishaw’s posthumous account of Park’s second expedition, Journal of a
Mission, published in 1815.
Professor Withers stated that biographers of Park depict him in different ways: as a good
man in Africa and for Africa; as a heroic figure within the history of geographical exploration;
as someone to be interpreted in the rhetoric of imperial derring-do; as one of the world’s
greatest explorers; and as a product of his Scottish rural environment and heritage. He has
been considered worthy of both local and national memorialisation, not just as a celebrated
African traveller but because he was various things all at once; a Scot, a Selkirk man, a
Christian, an explorer and a tragic figure.
In his first expedition, Park confirmed by ‘ocular demonstration’ that the River Niger runs
west to east. In 1805, when he set out to solve the second question, multiple theories
existed regarding where the Niger ended. The most widely held theory was that the Niger
ran into an inland lake or dissipated into the sands of central Africa. Other theories included:
the Niger flowed under the Sahara into the Mediterranean; it flowed into the Congo or the
Nile; or it ended in the sea. Christian Gottlieb Reichard, a German ‘armchair geographer’
published articles in German geographical periodicals in 1802 and 1803 arguing by analogy,
from consideration of comparable rivers in the world, along with ancient geographical
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reports, that the Niger curved southwest and emptied into the Atlantic. In fact, his
suggestions were correct. However, he never left Germany, never saw Africa and never
conducted ‘by ocular demonstration’ confirmation of the Niger Problem. A sedentary theorist
had discovered what generations of fieldworkers had not been able to establish and would
not determine for another thirty years. Professor Withers commented that the argument
could be made that, had the exchange of printed material been better between Germany
and Britain at this time, then Park might never have needed to go to Africa for a second time.
However, this wouldn’t have been the case, as even if Banks, Park or Rennell had known
about Reinhart’s work, they would have rejected it due to their belief in the existence of the
Mountains of Cong, which would prevent a southern course for the Niger; or, if they had
given the suggestion any credence, Park would still have wanted to go and see it for himself!
Park describes his 1799 book as “a composition that has nothing to recommend it but truth,
it is a plain unvarnished tale”. However, in private conversations with contemporaries such
as Sir Walter Scott, he admitted that his account was far from plain and not wholly truthful. A
later commentary makes this quite clear, stating that Park was prepared to omit the relation
of many real incidents and adventures which, he feared, might affect the probability of his
narrative in the public estimation. Why would Park only tell a partial tale? He explained to Sir
Walter Scott “I will not shock [my readers’] credulity, or render my travels more marvellous,
by producing anecdotes which, however true, can only relate to my own personal escapes
and adventures”. Thus the text that is ascribed to him and is central to his reputation, is by
its author’s own admission, partial.
Professor Withers concluded in stating that Park’s achievements were fundamental and
significant; he solved one aspect of the Niger Problem and died attempting to discover the
second, which had already been solved by a German armchair theorist. It is important,
however, to also appreciate why his achievements mattered so much to his contemporaries.
The Vote of Thanks was offered by Professor Jan McDonald FRSE.
Opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of the RSE, nor of its Fellows
The Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland’s National Academy, is Scottish Charity No. SC000470
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