It would seem that the disastrous ending of these various expeditions had thrown a damper upon the eagerness of volunteers to continue the work, for we now find the African Association offering the inducement of a liberal recompense to whomsoever would take up the task broken off by Houghton’s death.
Little wonder if qualified men hesitated to offer themselves. African fevers had a terror then which they no longer possess. The continent was practically unknown, and to the imagination, with no facts to act as correctives, everything wore a terrible aspect. Cannibalism, general bloodthirstiness and ferocity, a love of plunder, and all manner of horrible practices, were associated with the name of negro. Death by thirst or starvation was thought likely to be the lot of those who escaped the miasma of the land or the murderous spear of the native. Brave indeed would be the man who should face such an accumulation of vaguely discerned and mightily exaggerated horrors.
Nevertheless the African Association had not long to wait. At this crisis in their affairs the man for the work was forthcoming, one destined to crown their hopes with a triumphant success, to inaugurate a more brilliant future for African travel, and give it such an impetus as would carry it on to a glorious issue. This was Mungo Park.
To continue our narrative of exploration we must now leave the sweltering suns and miasmatic atmosphere of Western Africa for the temperate climate and bracing breezy hillsides of southern Scotland--turning from the river dear to the geographer to the stream loved of the poet--from the Niger to the Yarrow.
The man whose mission it was to break through the isolating barriers reared by savagery and a deadly climate between the land of the negro and all outside humanising influences, must needs have an heroic cradle, and come of an heroic race. His must be the nurture of the Spartan, physically equipping him to battle with hardship and privation--his the education and upbringing which tend to all forms of noble discontent and deeds of high emprise.
Such a cradle and such a race were Ettrickdale and its peasantry. Theirs was the life of honest toil and constant self-restraint, and theirs the direct and indirect education which in the right man develops romantic instincts, and weds to a perfervid imagination stern religious convictions, intense practicality, and prosaic tenacity of purpose. Theirs were the surroundings fitted alike to mould the poet or the hero--him who should sing of the chivalry of the past, or him who should be of the chivalry of the present, in whatever field is scope for praiseworthy ambition and highest aspiration--clear-sighted vision and undaunted courage, dogged persistence and untiring perseverance, fortitude under reverses, and physical powers to endure privation.
