Mr. Park with considerable accuracy at Dindikoo,* where
he speaks of the inhabitants looking from their tremendous
precipices over that wild and woody plain, which extends
from the Falemfr to the Black River. This plain, he says,
is, in extent from north to south, about forty miles; the
range of hills to the south seems to run in the same direction
as those of Konkodoo, viz. from east to west. The
framers of his map have made them run north and south,
because they could not otherwise carry the sources of the
rivers beyond them. Dindikoo was on the northern range
of hills, and supposing the southern range to be, as he
states, distant about forty miles, it will be found sufficient
to account for the size assigned to all the rivers passed by
Mr. Park in his route from the Gambia.
The first of these is the FalemS river, which he had already
crossed at Madina.-f- No particular account' is given of
the size of this river, or of the manner of passing it; but in
his former journey, when he crossed it about the same
place, he says,J that it was easily forded, being only about
two feet deep. In his last mission,§ he says, its course is
from the south-east, the distance to its source six ordinary
days’ travel. Assigning to it this course, its source will
not be beyond the hills, but the compilers of the map
attached to his Journal have given it a course much more
nearly south, and have placed its source, even in this direction,
far beyond six days’ journey by their own scale; and
without making any allowance for the time, and the distance
* Last Mission, page 176. f Idem, page 167.
J First Journey, page 346. § Last Mission, page 167.
in an horizontal line, lost in travelling over a mountainous
country. The next river is the Ba Lee, too insignificant to
be noticed. The next the Ba Fing, the greatest of the rivers
which form the Senegal. This was passed at Konkromo
by canoes. He gives us no account of the course of this
river or the distance to its sources, but merely says,* “ it is
“ here a large river quite navigable; it is swelled at this
“ time about two feet, and flows at the rate of three knots
« per hour.” When fully flooded, its course must be much
more rapid, as in his first journey,-]- he crossed it by a>
bridge, formed of two trees, tied together by the tops; and
adds, that this bridge is carried away every year by the
swelling of the river. Running, as we collect, from both
Mr. Park’s journies, but particularly the first, as this river
does, at the foot of a high ridge of mountains,^ and through
a country, which he calls every where “ hilly, and rugged,
« and grand beyond any thing he had seen ;”§ and allowing
for its necessary sinuosity in such a country, and its
receipt of numerous smaller streams in passing through it,
there can be no difficulty in accounting for it, such as described
by Mr. Park at Konkromo, by placing its sources
in the hills already described ; for neither his descriptions of
a river, which being flooded two feet is quite navigable,
nor of one, which could be crossed by so simple a bridge,
impress us with the idea of a mighty stream, or of one far
distant from its source. It is also fair to presume, that this
* Last Mission, pages 193, 194, 195. + First Journey, page 338.
. ■£ First Journey, page 340,
§ Second Mission, page 192, and First Journey, page 337, et passim.