He was now received with distinguished honor by the African Association, and the various literary men whom he met with in London. In the meantime his travels, which the Association permitted him to publish on his own account, were commenced; and both during his stay in London, and the visit which he paid to his friends in Scotland, all his leisure hours were devoted to the compiling and arranging of the materials for the work. It appeared in the Spring of 1799, and immediately acquired that degree of popularity which it has ever since maintained.

Soon after the publication of his travels Park returned to Scotland, where he married and lived for two years on a farm with his mother and one of his brothers. He then removed to town, where he resumed the practice of his profession, and in a short time acquired most of the business of the place. His kindness and charity greatly endeared him to the poor of the district. He soon began to tire, however, of the obscure life of a country surgeon; the facination of Africa was upon him, and he longed to return to the scene of his dangers and sufferings. At the close of the year 1804, Park again entered Africa, and after many exciting adventures, reached the Niger, and from the brow of a hill had once more the satisfaction to behold it, rolling its immense stream along the plain.

Our traveler now proposed following the course of the river to its termination, whether that should prove to be in some great lake or inland sea, or, as he rather believed in the Atlantic Ocean. In a letter to a person of high rank with whom he was in correspondence in England, he says: "With the assistance of one of the soldiers I have changed a large canoe into a tolerably good schooner, on board which I this day hoisted the English flag, and 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 course of this mighty stream; but I am more and more inclined to think that it can end nowhere but in the sea."

Mr. Park was never seen again by any of his friends, after

embarking on the Niger, and the theory is that he was murdered by some of the wild tribes who infest its banks, or drowned in descending its waters. It should be remembered that the Africans, who were questioned by subsequent explorers on this subject, seemed all exceedingly desirous of exculpating their countrymen, perhaps their own friends and relations, of the charge of having murdered Park and his companions; according to one narrator, the canoe was caught between two rocks, where the river being obstructed in its course, rushed through its narrow channel with prodigious fury. Here the travelers, in attempting to disembark, were drowned in sight of an immense multitude, who had assembled to see them pass, and were too timid to attack or assist them. This melancholy event appears to have occurred about March 1st, 1806.

Park possessed in a high degree the qualities necessary for a successful traveler-intrepidity, enthusiasm, perseverance, veracity and prudence—all of which were admirably illustrated by his first journey, as few men ever passed through circumstances so trying with equal nerve and self-posession.

In person he was tall, being about six feet high, and perfectly well proportioned. His countenance and whole appearance were highly interesting; his frame, active and robust, fitted for great exertions and extreme hardships. His constitution had suffered considerably from the effects of his first journey into Africa, but seems afterward to have been restored to its original vigor, of which his last expedition afforded the most abundant proofs. In all the relations of private life he appears to have been highly exemplary. To the more gentle and amiable parts of his character the most certain of all testimonies may be found, in the warm attachment of his friends, and in the fond and affectionate recollections of every branch of his family.

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CHAPTER III.

LIFE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA.

"I am as free as nature first made man,

Ere' the base laws of servitude began,

When unrestrained in woods, the noblest native ran.'

IN the year 1817, the Rev. Robert Moffat was sent to South

Africa as an agent of the London Missionary Society. As he was not, strictly speaking, an explorer, and his work is a series of observations and reflections, rather than a connected narrative, it will be sufficient to extract those portions which best describe the country and its inhabitants. In 1842 he published in London, an account of his experience, entitled, Missonary Labors and Scenes in South Africa." On arriving in Africa, he immediately entered on the duties of his office with zeal, courage and alacrity, departing from Cape Town, soon after his arrival, into a country of colored people, called the Bechuanas, where he remained many years, enduring the rude life of one of the humblest varieties of the human race, encountering many dangers and difficulties, but sustained through all by a truly Christian patience and humanity. He labored in the field until 1840-a period of twenty-three years -during which time he became familiar with the character and habits of nearly all the wild colored tribes between the English settlements and the mountains of Bamanguato, far beyond the Orange river, on the borders of the unknown country recently explored by Livingstone and Stanley.

The following is the account of the region where so many years of Mr. Moffat's life were spent:

"Great Namaqua-land, as it is usually called, lies north of the Orange river, on the western coast of Africa, between the twenty-third and twenty-eighth degrees of south latitude; bounded on the north by the Damaras, and on the east by the

extensive sandy desert, called the Southern Zara, Zahara. Meeting with an individual, on my journey thither, who had spent years in that country, I asked what was its character and physical appearance? 'Sir;' he replied, 'you will find plenty of sand and stones, a thinly scattered population, always suffering from want of water, on plains and hills, roasted like a burned leaf, under the rays of a cloudless sun.' Of the truth of this description I soon had ample demonstration. It is intersected by the Fish and Oup rivers, with their numberless tributary streams, if such their dry and often glowing beds may be termed. Sometimes, for years together, they are not known to run; when, after the stagnant pools are dried up, the natives congregate to their beds and dig holes, or wells, in some instances to the depth of twenty feet, from which they draw water, generally of a very inferior quality. They place branches of a tree in the excavation, and with great labor, under a hot sun, hand up the water in a wooden vessel, and pour it into an artificial trough; to which the panting, lowing herds approach, partially to satiate their thirst. Thunderstorms are eagerly anticipated, for by these only rain falls; and frequently these storms will pass over with tremendous violence, striking the inhabitants with awe, while not a single drop of rain descends to cool and fructify the parched waste."

"When the heavens do let down their watery treasures, it is generally in a partial strip of country which the electric cloud has traversed; so that the traveler will frequently pass, almost instantaneously, from ground on which there is not a blade of grass, into tracts of luxuriant green, sprung up after a passing storm. Fountains are indeed few and far between, the best very inconsiderable, frequently very salt, and some of them but springs; while the soil contiguous is generally so impregnated with saltpeter, as to crackle under the feet like hoar frost, and it is with great difficulty that any vegetable can be made to grow. Much of the country is hard and stony, interspersed with plains of deep sand. There is much granite; and quartz is so abundantly scattered, reflecting such a glare of light from the rays of the sun, that the traveler, if exposed.

at noon day, can scarcely allow his eyelids to be sufficiently open to enable him to keep the course he wishes to pursue."

"The inhabitants are a tribe or tribes of Hottentots, distinguished by all the singular characteristics of that nation, which includes Hottentots, Curannas, Namaquas and Bushmen. Their peculiar clicking language is so similar, that it is with little difficulty they converse with the two former. In their native state the aborigines, though deeply sunk in ignorance, and disgusting in their manners and mien, were neither very bloody or warlike in their disposition. The enervating influence of climate, and scanty sustenance, seemed to have deprived them of that bold martial spirit which distinguishes the tribes who live in other parts of the interior, which, in comparison with Namaqua-land, may be said to 'flow with milk and honey.' With the exception of the solitary traveler whose objects were entirely of a scientific character, those white men who ventured into the interior carried on a system of cupidity, and perpetrated deeds calculated to make the worst impression upon the minds of the natives, and influence them to view white men, and others described from them, as an 'angry' race of human beings, fit only to be classed with the lions which war for their prey in their native wilds. Intercourse with such visitors in the southern districts, and disgraceful acts of deceit, and oppression, committed by sailors from ships which visited Angra Piquena, and other places on the western coast, had, as may easily be conceived, the most banefal influence on the native tribes, and nurtured in their heathen minds, naturally suspicious, a savage disgust for all intercourse with white men-alas! professedly Christian. It was to such a people, and to such a country, that the Missionaries directed their course, to lead a life of the greatest self-denial and privation."

The Rev. J. Campbell, on his first visit to Africa, crossed the interior to Namaqua-land. During his journey he found every village in terror of a chief whom they called Africaner. The chief's tribe had removed farther and farther from the home of their fathers, as the Dutch settlers encroached on