This volume recounts Mungo Park's fatal expedition into the African interior in 1805, a journey that would claim his life but reshape European understanding of a continent. Having already risked everything on a first voyage as a young man, Park returns with new urgency: to solve the mystery of the Niger River's course and open trade routes that might rival the slave trade's profitability. What unfolds is a harrowing chronicle of dwindling supplies, hostile terrain, and the fragile hospitality of strangers in lands where a European face invited equal parts curiosity and danger. Park records his encounters with local rulers, his negotiations for passage through territories governed by ancient custom, and his growing awareness that this time he may not return. The narrative pulses with physical suffering and philosophical resolve, as Park weighs his private survival against the geographical secrets he has sworn to uncover.
