Chapter XVI: Back to the Gambia and Home

At Malacotta, Park could look forward with a considerable degree of confidence to his safe return to the coast. He was once more within the sphere of influence of coast trade, where the European was better known, and the hostile agency of the Moor was of small account. There were no more jungles to cross, and he was unaware of obstructing wars on the route. Through good and evil report Karfa had remained his staunch friend, and it was certain that now that his promised reward was coming nearer and nearer attainment, he would not alter in his honourable fidelity to his engagements. It was now only a question of so many more days’ journey till the Gambia would be reached, and all Park’s cares and troubles be at an end.

On the 7th of May the slave caravan left Malacotta, and resumed its journey to the coast. The Bali, a branch of the Senegal, was crossed, and Bintingala entered in the evening.

In the afternoon of the 12th the Falemé River was forded about 100 miles south of Park’s fording point on his inland journey. At this place and time of year the river was only two feet deep, flowing over a bed of sand and gravel.

On the same day the caravan halted at the residence of a Mandingo merchant, who had his food served up in pewter dishes in the European fashion. Next morning they were joined by a Serawuli slave caravan. These traders had the reputation of being infinitely more cruel in their treatment of slaves than the Mandingoes. Park was soon to see a sample of their ways. The caravan was travelling with great speed through the dense woods, when one of the slaves began to show signs of exhaustion, and let his load fall from his head. A smart flogging proved a temporary stimulant to the unhappy victim, but hardly a mile was passed before nature once more asserted itself, and again the load fell. A double dose of the lash proved a second time effectual, and once more the slave struggled painfully forward. At last the limits of his powers were reached, and it became clear that flog as they might he would remain immovable.

The caravan could not wait till he recovered, and accordingly one of the Serawulis undertook to wait and bring him to camp in the cool of the evening. When the slave dealer did arrive in camp he came alone. No questions were asked, but every one knew that either the unfortunate man had been killed, or was left to be devoured by wild beasts.

Other examples of the slave dealers’ methods were almost daily exhibited before Park’s eyes. At one place a Mandingo, having a slave torn from a neighbouring district, agreed with Karfa to exchange him for another from a more distant country, to which he could not run away. The slave to be taken by Karfa was called on a trivial pretext to come into the house. The moment he entered the gate was shut, and he was told to sit down. At once he saw the danger of his situation--not only the more horrible fate of transportation across the seas, but the loss of all chance of escape to his native country. He would at least make one effort for liberty. With the wild leap of a hunted deer he cleared the fence of the court and bolted for the woods. But it was useless. His enemies were too many. A few minutes of wild flight, spurred on by wolfish cries, and then he was hunted down and brought back in irons to be handed over to Karfa.

At another place one of the male slaves in the caravan was found to be too exhausted to proceed further in spite of the usual physical stimulants. A townsman was found willing to exchange him for a young girl. No hint was given her of her approaching doom till the last moment. Along with her companions she had come to see the caravan depart, when all at once her master seized her by the hand and delivered her to the slave dealer. “Never was a face of serenity more suddenly changed into one of the deepest distress. The terror she manifested on having the load put upon her head and the rope round her neck, and the sorrow with which she bade adieu to her companions, were truly affecting.”

Incidents like these were what chiefly characterised Park’s journey to the Gambia. At times the curious as well as the horrible side of African life peeped out to entertain him, as, for instance, when one of the slatees, on returning for the first time to his native place after an absence of three years, was met at the threshold of his door by his bride-elect, who presented him with a calabash of water in which to wash his hands. This done, “the girl, with a tear of joy sparkling in her eye, drank the water,” in token of her fidelity and attachment.

Another of the slatees turned out to be an African Enoch Arden. For eight long years he had stayed away from his wife, during which time she heard nothing from him. Concluding after three years that he was either dead or not likely to return, she seemingly without reluctance gave her heart and hand to another, by whom she had two children. The first husband now claimed her as his. The other objected on the ground that a three years’ absence annulled a marriage. For four days a public palaver was held to settle this knotty point, ending in the decision that the husbands had equal rights, and that the wife had best settle the matter by making her own choice. The lady asked time to consider, but Park could perceive that not love but wealth would gain the day.

On the 20th of May the caravan entered the Tenda Wilderness, where for two days they traversed dense woods. With what pleasure must Park have noticed that the country shelved towards the south-west--that in fact he had entered the basin of the Gambia. At sunset of the first day a pool was reached after a very hot and trying march. To avoid the burning heats of the day a night march was determined on. At eleven o’clock the slaves were released from their irons and driven forward in close order, as much to prevent them escaping as to save them from wild beasts. In this fashion they travelled till daybreak, after a rest continuing the march to Tambakunda, the place almost reached by Jobson nearly 170 years before, and which he believed to be Timbuktu itself.

From Tambakunda the road led over a wild and rocky country, everywhere rising into hills, and abounding with monkeys and wild beasts. During the next two marches the reception everywhere met with by the caravan was far from being hospitable, and they were even in some danger of being plundered.

On the 30th of May the Nerico, a branch of the Gambia, was reached. As soon as it was crossed the singing men began to chant a song expressive of their delight at having got safe into the “land of the setting sun.” Next day, to his infinite joy, Park found himself on the banks of the Gambia, at a point where it was navigable, though lower down there were shallows.

Three days later, Medina, the capital of Wulli, was reached, where Park had been so hospitably received seventeen months before. The caravan did not halt here; but Park, mindful of the old king’s prayer on his behalf, sent word to him that his prayers had not been unavailing.

Next day Jindeh was reached, where the parting with Dr. Laidley had taken place. Here Karfa left his slaves till a better opportunity of selling them had arrived; but determined not to leave his white friend till the last, he accompanied him on his way to Pisania.

Park at this point remarks: “Although I was now approaching the end of my tedious and toilsome journey, and expected in another day to meet with countrymen and friends, I could not part for the last time with my unfortunate fellow-travellers, doomed as I knew most of them to be to a life of captivity and slavery in a foreign land, without great emotion.... We parted with reciprocal expressions of regret and benediction. My good wishes and prayers were all that I could bestow upon them, and it afforded me some consolation to be told that they were sensible I had no more to give.”

On the 10th, Park once more shook hands with one of his countrymen. He found that it was universally believed that he had met the same fate as Major Houghton in Ludamar. He also learned with sincere sorrow that neither Johnson, who had deserted him, nor Demba, who had been enslaved by the Moors, had returned.

On the 12th, Dr. Laidley joined the long-lost traveller, and greeted him as one risen from the dead. Park was soon, under his hospitable hands, divested of his ragged Moorish garments. With them went the luxuriant beard which had been the delight and admiration of natives and Moors alike, among whom nothing is more envied, and he stood forth once more the handsome young Scotchman his portrait shows him to be.

Karfa was now paid off, the stipulated reward being doubled, and Dr. Laidley’s interest also promised in getting his slaves disposed of to advantage.

Karfa was never tired expressing his wonderment at all he saw, though nothing surprised him more than the incomprehensible madness of a person in Park’s condition in life leaving all and suffering so many hardships and dangers merely to see the river Niger. “I have preserved,” says Park, “these little traits of character in this worthy negro, not only from regard to the man, but also because they appear to me to demonstrate that he possessed a mind above his condition, and to such of my readers as love to contemplate human nature in all its varieties, and to trace its progress from rudeness to refinement, I hope the account I have given of this poor African will not be unacceptable.”

Looking back on his long and terrible journey, Park could afford to take a lenient view of all the people who had plundered, ill-used, or inhospitably treated him, except the Moors, of whom he carried a deep-rooted horror and hatred to his dying day. For the Mandingoes and kindred tribes he could ever find an excuse for all he suffered at their hands, and as a people he found them gentle, cheerful in their dispositions, kind-hearted, and simple, with a natural sense of justice which only very great temptation could overcome. He could not find words strong enough to describe the disinterested charity and tender solicitude shown by many of them, especially the women, whom he found to be universally kind and compassionate, sympathising with his sufferings, relieving his distresses, and contributing to his safety.

Reviewing what he had seen commercially, he found that slaves, gold, and ivory, beeswax and honey, hides, gums, and dye woods, constituted the whole catalogue of exportable commodities. Of other products, such as tobacco, indigo, and cotton, sufficient only was raised for native consumption. He concluded, nevertheless, that “it cannot, however, admit of a doubt that all the rich and valuable productions both of the East and West Indies might easily be naturalised and brought to the utmost perfection in the tropical parts of this immense continent. Nothing is wanting to this end but example to enlighten the minds of the natives, and instruction to enable them to direct their industry to proper objects. It was not possible for me to behold the wonderful fertility of the soil, the vast herds of cattle, proper both for food and labour, and a variety of other circumstances favourable to colonisation and agriculture, and reflect withal on the means which presented themselves of a vast inland navigation, without lamenting that a country so abundantly gifted and favoured by nature should remain in its present savage and neglected state. Much more did I lament that a people of manners and dispositions so gentle and benevolent should either be left as they now are, immersed in the gross and uncomfortable blindness of Pagan superstition, or permitted to become converts to a system of bigotry and fanaticism which, without enlightening the mind, often debases the heart.” And yet which of the representatives of the two religions, Islam and Christianity, were doing the most good among the heathen according to Park’s own showing--the Mohammedans, battling against the inrushing tide of rum and gin, encouraging education, and spreading a knowledge of Allah the One God; or the Christian merchants, fomenting and deepening all the horrors of native barbarism that their trade in slaves might be kept up, and adding to the degradation of the land by the drink and firearms they gave in exchange for its people?

As there was no ship in the river when Park arrived, he expected to have to wait for some months. In this, however, he was happily disappointed, for an American slave ship, the _Charlestown_, arrived on the 15th. Slaves were plentiful, and in a couple of days the cargo of human flesh and blood for the plantations of South Carolina was made up in exchange for rum and tobacco.

Though the route by America was excessively circuitous, it was such a chance as Park could not afford to neglect. Accordingly, on the 17th of June he bade farewell to all his English friends, and took passage in the American vessel.

He had now reason to suppose that all his cares, anxieties, and dangers were over, and nothing but rest and good treatment before him. Once more, however, he was dogged by his usual ill-luck. The passage down the river was tedious and fatiguing, the weather being exceedingly hot, moist, and unhealthy. The result was that before Goree was reached, four of the seamen, the surgeon, and three of the slaves had died of fever. At Goree, owing to the difficulty of obtaining provisions, the vessel was detained four weary months, so that it was the end of October before she eventually set sail for America.

The _Charlestown’s_ cargo consisted of 130 slaves, of whom twenty-five had been free Mohammedans, able to read and write a little Arabic. Some of the others had seen Park _en route_, and many had heard of him in their distant villages. But though he had not a word to say against the slave trade, Park had a feeling heart for the miseries of those whom, with his Calvinistic ideas, he believed predestined to a life of shame and suffering. Being able to speak to them in their native language, he did his best as a man and a doctor to comfort them. And in truth they had need of all the consolation he could bestow. The manner in which they were crowded, confined, and chained in the hold of the ship produced terrible sufferings, while the foul air, the wretched sanitary conditions, and the want of exercise brought on general sickness. “Besides the three who died on the Gambia, and six or eight at Goree, eleven perished at sea, and many of the survivors were reduced to a very weak and emaciated condition.”

To make matters worse for all concerned, the _Charlestown_ sprang a leak three weeks from Goree, and threatened to founder in mid-ocean. To avoid this, the ablest of the negroes were taken from their chains and kept at the pumps till they could be hounded on no longer, and sank down exhausted and half dead. In spite of everything, however, the leak continued to gain, and the misery of all on board was indescribable. As affording the only chance of safety, the _Charlestown_ was turned from its course and steered for Antigua, which was reached thirty-five days out from Goree. But even in sight of harbour the ship narrowly escaped destruction by striking on a sunken rock.

Park remained at Antigua for two days, when on the 24th November he was taken up by a passing mail ship. After a short but tempestuous voyage he arrived at Falmouth on the 22nd December, having been absent from England two years and nine months.