6 THE EXPLORATION OF THE NIGER

Although very celebrated in England, Mungo Park was

quite unknown to the French, even ia their .colonies. I give

the following well-known anecdote from memory. " In

1890 a highly educated person said to M. X , a French

colonial officer of high rank, ' There is a future before the Niger districts. See what Mungo Park says about

them ; ' and he followed this up with a lot of quotations from Park's book. ' Oh, that is all very interesting,' said the other ; ' if Mungo Park is in Paris, you had better take him to the Minister.' Then when the death of Park in

1805 was explained, M. X cried, thinking he had

found an unanswerable argument, * I bet your Park died

of fever ! ' "

Perhaps after all he confused him with the Pare Monceau,

the healthiness of which had lately been called in question.

Our journey was accomplished just one century after

Mungo Park's first attempt. We started from about the same point, too, as did the great Scotch traveller, only from the Senegal instead of the Gambia, but our attempt was crowned by success.

Of course, it will be said, that we had fewer unknown

districts to go through. Since 1805, Europeans have con-

quered half the continent of Africa. We stepped from a French colony into an English Protectorate. Moreover,

earlier travellers than ourselves explored certain sections of our route, whilst Park had everywhere to work his way through virgin territory.

Perhaps, however, all these supposed advantages in our favour really only added to our difficulties.

Happening to find myself in Paris in October 1893,

on the eve of my return to my Staff duties in the French

Sudan, I one day met Colonel Monteil. " Go," he said to me, " and find Monsieur Delcasse " (then Under Secretary

of State for the Colonies), " he has something to say to you."