Mango Park. By T. Banks Maclaclan. (Oliphant and Co.) —Among
the many wonderful stories of African exploration told during the last century there is not one more interesting and pathetic than that of hlungo Park. if poets are not made, but born, so are travellers like the brave Scotchman who at the age of twenty-four undertook to discover the Niger. To a less determined man the obstacles he encountered would have been invincible. In solitude, in nakedness, in fever, in constant peril of his life from men and wild beasts, often without water or food, and amidst tropical rains, Park pressed on until he caught sight of the river which had hitherto been unseen by any European. The interest of the narrative is to be found in its details, but Mr. Maclaclan has skilfully selected in this little volume the most significant passages of Park's travels. Some lively episodes are, perhaps, discreetly omitted, but enough is told in one hundred and fifty pages to make a reader turn with interest to the original journal. Park lived a peaceful married life for several years after his return to Scotland. He gained the friendship of Sir Walter Scott, who relates how on one occasion he found him throwing stones into the water, and watching the bubbles as they rose to the surface. It was Park's method of ascertaining the depth of a river before he ventured to cross it. The African traveller, as Scott conjectured, was meditating his second and, as it proved, fatal expedition. It was unfortunate from the outset, and to add to the pitifulness of the tragedy Park's son, many years afterwards, believing that his father was still alive, went in search of him, and no white man ever saw him again. Mr. Maclaclan's narrative belongs to the "Famous Scots Series," and few men are better entitled to a place in that series than Mungo Park.
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