the language of the Mandingoes, a native tribe, and this was a
great help to him.

He finally started with only six natives on his journey. Had he been
older and wiser he would have taken a larger company. At one time they
were captured by Moors and a wild boar was turned loose upon them, but
instead of attacking Park the beast turned upon its owners, and this
aroused their superstitious fears. The king then ordered him to be put
into a hut where the boar was tied while he and his chief officers
discussed whether Park should lose his right hand, his eyes or his life.
But he escaped from them, and after nearly two years of wandering in
search of the Niger's source, during which time he suffered many
hardships and had many narrow escapes, he returned to Kano, the place
where he had been ill.

At one time during his journey Mr. Park arrived in the neighborhood of
Sego, and as a white man had never been seen in that region before, the
natives looked upon him with fear and astonishment. He asked to see the
king, but no one would take him across the river, and the king sent word
that he would by no means receive the strange traveler until he knew
what the latter wanted.

Park was tired, hungry, and discouraged and was preparing to spend the
night in the branches of a tree when a native woman pitied him. She
invited him into her hut, and with the hospitality for which the natives
are noted, shared with him her food. By signs she made him understand
that he might occupy the sleeping mat and as she and her daughter sat
spinning they sang their native songs, among them the following, which
was impromptu and composed in honor of the stranger:

The wind roared and the rain fell.
The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree.
He has no mother to bring him milk; no wife to grind his corn.

CHORUS

Let us pity the white man;
No mother has he to bring him milk;
No wife to grind his corn.

Speaking of this incident, Park says: "Trifling as this recital may
appear to the reader, to a person in my situation the circumstance was
affecting in the highest degree. I was oppressed by such unexpected
kindness and sleep fled from my eyes." And another writer says: "The
name of the woman and the alabaster box of precious ointment, the
nameless widow, who, giving only two mites, had given more than all the
rich, and this nameless woman of Sego, form a trio of feminine beauty
and grandeur of