Park, MUNGO, the African traveller, was born 10th September 1771, at Foulshiel on the Yarrow, a farmer's seventh child in a family of thirteen. Educated at Selkirk, he was apprenticed to Dr Thomas Anderson, a surgeon there, and afterwards studied medicine in Edinburgh (1789–91). He was then introduced to Sir Joseph Banks by his brother-in-law, James Dickson, botanist, and obtained the situation of assistant-surgeon in the Worcester, bound for Bencoolen in Sumatra. On his return in 1793, the African Association of London had received intelligence of the death of Major Houghton, who had undertaken a journey to Africa at their expense. Park offered his services, was accepted, and sailed from England 22d May 1795. He spent some months at the English factory of Pisania on the Gambia in making preparations for his travels, and in learning the Mandingo language. Leaving Pisania on the 2d of December he travelled eastward; but when he had nearly reached the place where Houghton lost his life, he fell into the hands of a Moorish king, who imprisoned him, and treated him roughly. Park seized an opportunity of escaping (1st July 1796), and in the third week of his flight reached the Niger, the great object of his search, at Sego, in 13° 5' N. lat. He followed its course downward as far as Silla; but meeting with hindrances that compelled him to retrace his steps, he pursued his way westward along its banks to Bammaku, and then crossed a mountainous country till he came to Kamalia, in the kingdom of Mandingo (14th September), where he was taken ill, and lay for some time. A slave-trader at last conveyed him again to the English factory on the Gambia, where he arrived, 10th June 1797, after an absence of nineteen months. Bryan Edwards drew up an account of his journey for the Association, and Park published an account of his travels after his return, under the title of Travels in the Interior of Africa (1799), a work which at once acquired a high popularity. He now married a daughter of Dr Anderson, his old Selkirk friend (2d August 1799), and settled as a surgeon at Peebles, where, however, he did not feel at home. He told Scott that he would rather brave Africa and its horrors than wear his life out in toilsome rides amongst the hills for the scanty remuneration of a country surgeon; and so, in 1805, he undertook another journey to Africa at the expense of government. As he parted from Scott on Williamhope ridge, his horse stumbled: 'I am afraid, Mungo,' said Scott, 'that is a bad omen.' To which Park replied with a smile, 'Freits (omens) follow those who look to them.' When he started from Pisania he had a company of forty-five, of whom thirty-six were European soldiers; but when he reached the Niger in August his attendants were reduced to seven. From Sansanding on the Niger, in the kingdom of Bambarra, he sent back his journals and letters in November 1805 to the Gambia, and embarked in an unwieldy half-rotten canoe with four European companions. Through many perils and difficulties they reached Boussa, where the canoe was caught in a cleft of rock; they were attacked by the natives, and drowned as they attempted to escape. An account of Park's second journey was published at London in 1815. Mrs Park was in receipt of a government pension till her death in 1840. Two of Park's sons joined the Indian army; Thomas, the second son, perished in trying to penetrate the mystery of his father's death. Park's narratives, which are well written, have long held their place amongst the classics of travel, and are of no inconsiderable value, particularly for the light which they throw upon the social and domestic life of the negroes, and on the botany and meteorology of the regions through which he passed; but he was unfortunately cut off before he had achieved the grand aim of his explorations—the discovery of the course of the Niger (q.v.). Park was tall and robust, and possessed of great hardihood and muscular vigour. 'For actual hardships undergone,' writes Joseph Thomson, 'for dangers faced, and difficulties overcome, together with an exhibition of the virtues which make a man great in the rude battle of life, Mungo Park stands without a rival.'
See the Life by Wishaw, prefixed to Journal (1815), and Joseph Thomson's Mungo Park (1890).