Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/415

 of which I can mention the principal ones. From 1749 to 1758 Adamson surveyed the river and visited Goree. From 1785 to 1788, Goldberry and Geoffroy penetrated the deserts of the Senegambia and ascended as far as the Maures country, where Saugnier, Brisson, Adam, Riley, Cochelet, and many others were murdered. Then there was the celebrated Mungo Park, the friend of Walter Scott, and a Scot likewise. Sent out by the African Society of London, in 1795, he reached Bambarra and the Niger, marched 500 miles with a slave dealer, discovered the Gambia river, and returned to England in 1797. On the 30th January, 1805, he started again with Anderson, his brother-in-law, Scott, the draughtsman, and thirty-five soldiers, revisited the Niger on the 19th August, but by that time, owing to fatigue, privation, ill-treatment, bad weather, and an unhealthy country, only eleven out of forty Europeans remained alive. On the 16th November the last letters of Mungo Park reached his wife, and a year later they learnt, through a merchant, that the unfortunate traveler, having reached Boussa on the Niger, on the 23rd December, his boat was upset in the rapids, and that he had been murdered by the natives.

"And did not his sad fate deter others?"

"On the contrary, Dick, for then they had not only to explore the river but to find the travelers' papers. In the year 1816, an expedition was organized in London, in which Major Gray took part, which arrived at Senegal, penetrated into Fonta Djallon, visited the Foullahs and Manduignes, and returned to England without having achieved anything further. In 1822, Major Laing explored all the western part of Africa, bordering upon the British possessions, and it was he who first reached the sources of the Niger, and according to his report the source of this immense river is only two feet wide!"

"All the easier to jump over!" said Joe.

"Yes, easy enough," replied the doctor. "If we can credit tradition though, whoever attempts to jump over this source is immediately swallowed up in the act, and whoever wishes to draw water there is pushed away by an invisible hand."

"I suppose we needn't believe all that unless we like?" said Joe.