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Of his party some died of disease, and some were slain by the natives. Not one returned; and the only trace of Mungo Park was a book, known to have been in his possession, found by British explorers in the hut of a native chief. Then Alec MacKenzie read of the efforts to reach Timbuktu, which was the great object of ambition to the explorers of the nineteenth century.
"There's nae doot they're gey and chief got sin! he cam' back, and she foun' oot wha created the collieshangie." "Ay, man, and she kens that?" said the Chamberlain with unnatural calm. "'Deed does she, brawly! though hoo she kens is mair nor I can guess. Monsher thrieps it wasnae him, and I'll gie my oath it wasnae me." "Women are kittle cattle, Mungo.
Five Crows, the warrior, was there with Joe Lewis, of Whitman's household, and Joe Stanfield, alike suspicious and treacherous, and old Mungo, the interpreter. Sitkas, a leading Indian, may have been present, as the story I am to give came in part from him. Joe Lewis was the principal speaker. Addressing the Cayuses, he said: "The moon brightens; your tents fill with furs.
Here was a wilderness of lies; yet, after all, the lies were but so many voluminous fasciæ, enveloping the mummy of an original truth. Mungo Park came, and the city of Tombuctoo was shown to be a real existence. Seeing was believing.
"Mademoiselle Olivia," said Count Victor, "I am what do you call it? a somnambulist. In that condition it has sometimes been my so good fortune to wander into the most odd and ravishing situations. But as it happens, helas! I can never recall a single incident of them when I waken in the morning. Ma foi!" "Mungo knows all," said the lady; "Mungo will explain."
This, sir, is not a hare taken in war, but one which had voluntarily placed itself under your protection; and savage indeed must be that man who does not make his hearth an asylum for the confiding stranger." Mungo Park. While Park was waiting on the banks of the Niger for a passage, the king of the country was informed that a white man intended to visit him.
Men passed on rough short ponies; once a chariot with a great caleche roof swung on the rutless road, once a company of red-coat soldiery shot like a gleam of glory across the afternoon, moving to the melody of a fife and drum. For the latter Mungo had a sour explanation. They were come, it seemed, to attend a trial for murder. "But, mon Dieu! he is yet to try, is he not?" cried Count Victor.
I do not meddle with anything, save to take a few specimens and to put a few more rocks on the cairn, and to put in among them my card, merely as a civility to Mungo, a civility his Majesty will soon turn into pulp. Not that it matters what is done is done. The weather grows worse every minute, and no sign of any clearing shows in the indigo sky or the wind-reft mist.
"Decidedly a diplomatist!" said Count Victor, laughing. "I always loved an enthusiast; go on go on, good Mungo. And so he is my nocturnal owl, my flautist of the bower, my Orpheus of the mountains. Does the gifted Annapla also connive, and are hers the window signals?" "Annapla kens naething o' that " "The what do you call it? the Second Sight appears to have its limitations."
It had been seen by Mungo Park flowing eastward, and it was therefore, till the Landers descended it, supposed that it might possibly make its way into some vast lake in Central Africa. On the flatter shore opposite, a large town lay spread out, the low ramparts and huts of which were picturesquely overtopped by numbers of slender dum-palms.
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