Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa

Mungo Park was twenty-four when the African Association sent him inland from the Gambia to find where the Niger ran and which way it flowed. What followed was two years of hunger and robbery, including four months held prisoner by a Moorish chief, and it ended with a sick man on a borrowed horse reaching Segou and seeing the river move east. His 1799 narrative sold enormously, and it is easy to see why. Park wrote without heroics, admitted his fear, and paid close attention to the ordinary kindness of people who fed and sheltered a stranger with nothing left. It stands as one of the plainest and most readable accounts of eighteenth century exploration. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.