k a fancy to climb a
particular tree, which the natives entreated him to desist from, saying
that it was Fetished,[27] however, he persisted and accomplished his
wish. A few days after this he was taken ill, and as every one knows,
he did not survive to tell his own story: perhaps the precise cause of
his death will ever remain in doubt. This gentleman was a son of the
celebrated Mungo Park, than whom no man was better calculated for such
an enterprise, and whose loss is perhaps more to be regretted than that
of any other African traveller; but I lament to say that from the
moment I heard of his son, an inexperienced young man, undertaking an
enterprise of such magnitude, as that of penetrating alone into the
interior of an unknown country, to solve a problem in the pursuit of
which so many distinguished travellers had failed and fallen, I confess
I never supposed he would live to return: in fact, the project appeared
to me, what is emphatically expressed in the old proverb, "a wild-goose
chase." For where men of maturer judgment and greater experience found
that they could not contend against the superstitions, prejudices, and
artifices of those cunning savages, how was it to be expected that a
youth of nineteen could possibly succeed?

I have heard, that his desire for travelling in Africa, arose from a
romantic notion, that had entered his head when a boy, of seeking for
his father in the interior of that country, to ascertain whether he was
alive and in slavery, or had lost his life by sickness, or violence.
This filial enthusiasm continued to haunt him until a short time before
he left England, when he abandoned the fond hope of recovering his
father, whose death was confirmed by a variety of coincident
circumstances, but still he resolved to persevere in his long-cherished
scheme of visiting the interior of Africa. Impelled, perhaps, by the
name he inherited, and a latent passion to emulate the deeds of his
father, on the same field of action, he embarked in this hazardous and
unfortunate enterprise. But mark the difference of character and
qualifications. The father, a man of mature judgment, whose experience
in the world gave him considerable advantages; was also of an age and
temperament that rendered him less liable to the endemic diseases of
such a climate,[28] while his patience, perseverance, and medical
skill, enabled him to surmount difficulties which a younger man, by his
rashness, would only increase. T