At Jarra, Park was hospitably received by a Gambia slatee, who had borrowed goods from Dr. Laidley to the value of six slaves, for which debt Park was provided with an order. The debt was acknowledged, but the merchant pleaded inability to pay more than two slaves.
Our traveller had now entered a more inhospitable region. Ludamar was found to be inhabited by negroes, an Arab race largely intermixed with negro blood forming the rulers and possessing the worst characteristics of both sides of descent.
Park and his attendants were not long in experiencing the brutal and inhospitable character of this degraded hybrid people.
Difficulties had met them at every step of their journey, and now nothing but new terrors loomed up before them. So great did these seem, and so overbearing and threatening was the attitude of the Moors, that Park’s servants declared they would rather lose everything they possessed than proceed further. Not only were they liable to robbery and ill-usage, but not improbable to slavery also. These facts were so patent that, though unwavering in his own determination to push on, Park could not bring himself to force his men to follow him. Accordingly he made arrangements for parting with them. Among other things, he prepared duplicates of his papers to put into the hands of Johnson. Meanwhile a messenger had been sent to Ali, chief of the country, to ask permission to pass through his country to Bambarra. The request was accompanied by a present of fine garments of cotton cloth which Park purchased from the slatee in exchange for his fowling-piece. Fourteen days elapsed before an answer was returned, and then he was told to follow Ali’s messenger to Gumba.
On preparing to depart, hopeful as ever that yet he should live to see the Niger, he was further cheered by the fidelity of his boy Demba, who seeing his master was not to be dissuaded from his determination to proceed, resolved not to desert him, whatever might be the result. It then came out that Johnson, whose residence among Europeans had only served to corrupt him, had treacherously tried to seduce Demba to return with him and leave the white man to his fate.
To diminish the inducements to plunder, Park, before starting, left as many of his personal effects behind him as he could spare. For two days the little party toiled over a sandy country. On the third day they reached Dina, a large town built of stone and clay. The reception Park here met with at the hands of the natives was atrocious. Every opprobrious epithet which their vocabulary could supply was hurled at him. Not content with words, they proceeded to spit upon and otherwise heap ignominy upon the stranger, ending by tearing open his bundles and helping themselves to whatever they had a mind. For the victim of these outrages there was nothing but patience and resignation, with which virtues, indeed, he seems to have been amply endowed. He might be robbed of his material resources, but his spiritual stores remained untouched. With him, while there was life there was hope.