Mungo Park

Broschiertes Buch

The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa, in the Year 1805

Beschreibung

Mungo Park was the original lone explorer of West Africa. The first European to reach the Niger, record its flow direction and return alive, he was considered a hero on his return. He died during his second exploration attempt inland along the Niger to discover the city of Timbuktu. Published posthumously in 1815 by the African Institution, which had sponsored his journey, a biography, personal letters and the account of the rescue team sent to discover his fate accompany Park's own journal of the expedition. The journals and letters are a fascinating description of the constant dangers and thrill of the age of exploration. Battling adverse weather, local hostility, tropical diseases and the death of nearly all his party including his brother-in-law, Park writes 'I would still persevere; and if I could not succeed in the object of my journey, I would at least die on the Niger.'

Autor

Mungo Park was a Scottish explorer of West Africa. He was born in 1771 and died in 1806. After exploring the upper Niger River in 1796, he wrote a popular and influential travel book called Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa. In it, he thought that the Niger and Congo rivers merged to become the same river, but it was later shown that they are different rivers. Mungo Park was born in Selkirkshire, Scotland, at Foulshiels on the Yarrow Water, close to Selkirk, on a tenant farm that his father rented from the Duke of Buccleuch. Before he went to Selkirk grammar school, he learned at home. At age 14, he went to work for Thomas Anderson, a doctor in Selkirk, as an apprentice. During his apprenticeship, Park became friends with Anderson's son Alexander and met his future wife, Anderson's daughter Allison. Moby-Dick, which was written by Herman Melville in 1851, talks about Mungo Park. In Water Music, written by T. C. Boyle in 1981, Mungo Park is one of the two main characters. In his song "Monsters You Made," which is on the 2020 album Twice as Tall, Burna Boy talks about Park.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Cambridge University Press
• Seitenzahl: 402
• Erscheinungstermin: 26. November 2010
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 244mm x 170mm x 22mm
• Gewicht: 691g
• ISBN-13: 9781108027670
• ISBN-10: 1108027679
• Artikelnr.: 32880909