VALE UNIVERSITY LIBRA

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'I give thefe Books
for the founding of a. College in. this. Colony

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Mungo Park and Richard Lander.
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Sir, ;
During the last thirty years, public attention has been
often drawn to the numerous administrators, soldiers, travellers,
scientists and others, who have taken prominent parts in the
partition and development of Africa, but there is a danger of
earlier pioneer explorers being allowed to pass into oblivion.
A suitable memorial has,' however, been erected recently on
the spot where David Livingstone breathed his last, and it
seems -fitting that a similar memorial should be erected on
the banks of the Niger to the two great explorers who, between
them, traced its course from Bamaku, not far from its source,
to it's mouth on the Atlantic. This duty is specially incumbent
on Great Britain, not only because Mungo Park- and Richard
Lander were British subjects, but also because the most
valuable part of the Niger basin has since been brought within
the British Empire.
Mungo Park is probably the better remembered of the
two travellers, both as the father of modern exploration in
Africa and for the distances covered by his memorable journeys
in 1795-6 and 1805-6. Our knowledge concerning the second
of these journeys, which terminated in his death in the Boussa
Rapids, is -incomplete ; but the account of his earlier expedition,
practically alone and unsupported, furnishes a perhaps
unparalleled record of energy, resource and fortitude under
extreme privations and difficulties.
/Richard Lander's intrepid journey in 1830 was, in thesp
respects, less remarkable; but the contribution of his great
discovery to the ultimate civilization of Western Africa was

even more important, as he connected the Upper Niger regions,
from Boussa, the scene of Park's death, with the universal
highway of the ocean. Until this pregnant discovery was made
geographers were still disputing whether the great river was
absorbed in the deserts of the heart of the Continent, or crossed
Africa and formed the Nile, the sources of which were then
unknown, or (as Mungo Park believed up to his death) was
the parent stream of the Congo ; and so general was this last
belief that, in 1816, the British Government despatched the
ill-fated Tuckey expedition to ascend the Lower Congo, in the
hope of reaching Boussa.
A Committee, consisting of the undersigned, and of Major
Leonard Darwin, late President of the Royal Geographical
Society, Sir Walter Egerton, Governor of Southern Nigeria, and
Sir Hesketh Bell, Governor of Northern Nigeria, has been
formed for the purpose of erecting a memorial to the two
explorers. Both of them have, indeed, been thus honoured
in their native towns of Selkirk and Truro, but no record of
any kind exists in the land to which their lives were consecrated
and sacrificed. As the main object of their travels was to discover where
the Niger joined the ocean, the most suitable site would seem
to be its principal ocean-port.
It is therefore proposed to erect an obelisk, of similar
design and dimensions to Cleopatra's Needle, on a projecting
point of land at Forcados, where it would both attract general
attention and serve as a landmark to vessels approaching the
port. The total cost is estimated at .£2,000, exclusive of the
foundations, which it is understood will be undertaken by the
Government of Southern Nigeria.
The present appeal for the above amount is therefore
made to all who are interested in geographical discovery, in
the recent extensions of the Empire, or in perpetuating the
memory of two heroic lives.

Donations, however small, will be gratefully received, and
may be sent to any of the undersigned ; to the Hon. Treasurer,
Dr. J. Scott Keltie, i, Savile Row, London, W. ; or to the Mungo
Park and Richard Lander Memorial Account, at the Bank of
British West Africa,. Limited, 17 and 18, Leadenhall Street,
London, E.C. ; or the Bank of Nigeria, Limited, Mowbray
House, Norfolk Street, Strand, London, W.C.

President, Royal Geographical Society.

President, Royal Scottish Geographical Society.

President, African Society.

Chairman, Niger Comtany.

1911.