Product Description

In 1795 Mungo Park, a twenty-four year old surgeon, set out from the Gambia to trace the course of the Niger, a river of which Europeans had no first-hand knowledge. Travels in the interior districts of Africa is his Journal of that extraordinary journey. He travelled on the sufferance of African rulers and soon came to depend for his survival on the charity of African villagers. Before he reached the Niger, he endured months of captivity in the camp of a Moorish chief. Yet throughout his travels, Park maintained a remarkable empathy for African societies and beliefs. He recorded what he saw as accurately as he could, and without presuming European superiority.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #141651 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-30
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Customer Reviews

The best travel book I've ever read
This book is Mungo Park's account of his journey into the interior of Africa, at a time (1795) when due to disease, etc. it was pretty much inaccessible to Europeans. I was grabbed from the first chapter which describes his entry into an exotic and alien land. The book tells how he had his possessions and even his clothing stolen, how he was imprisoned by the Moors and somehow found the strength and courage to keep going and eventually returned to Britain. The book does not dwell on his hardships unduly, however, but also describes the people he meets and their daily life and the environment in which they live. Generally his tone is detached and non-judgemental with regard to both Africans and Europeans alike (with the noticeable exception of the Moors). At the end of the book, the sad details of Park's second journey to Africa are also included. I had to read this for an Open University course, and I am so grateful that I was given the opportunity, as this is the best travel book I have ever read.

What a holiday!!!
The book was written just after 1797 and so does not flow like a modern book, but it is an amazing story and if you read between the lines it gives a great insight in to western Africa before the westerns changed things for ever.

Incredible story and honest account of West Africa in 1800
A great book, which is simultaneously a fantastic adventure and insightful anthropological study. I would certainly recommend it to anyone interested in West African culture and/or who is planning to travel in Senegal, Mali or Mauritania. Particularly fascinating is the comparison between the Mali of 200 years ago and that of today.