Мунго Парк: Африканы зерттеген шотланд саяхатшысы

Scottish naturalist and explorer of the African continent

Mungo Park (11 September 1771 – 1806) was a Scottish explorer of West Africa. After an exploration of the upper Niger River around 1796, he wrote a popular and influential travel book titled Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa in which he theorized the Niger and Congo merged to become the same river, though it was later proven that they are different rivers. He was killed during a second expedition, having successfully travelled about two thirds of the way down the Niger. If the African Association was the "beginning of the age of African exploration" then Mungo Park was its first successful explorer; he set a standard for all who followed. Park was the first Westerner to have recorded travels in the central portion of the Niger, and through his popular book introduced the public to a vast unexplored continent which influenced future European explorers and colonial ambitions in Africa.

Mungo Park was born in Selkirkshire, Scotland, at Foulshiels on the Yarrow Water, near Selkirk, on a tenant farm which his father, Mungo Park (1714–1793), rented from the Duke of Buccleuch. He was the seventh in a family of thirteen. Although tenant farmers, the Parks were relatively well off. They were able to pay for Park to receive a good education, and Park's father died leaving property valued at £3,000 (3000.0 in 1800 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years). His parents had originally intended him for a ministry in the Church of Scotland. He was educated at home before attending Selkirk grammar school. At the age of fourteen, he was apprenticed to Thomas Anderson, a surgeon in Selkirk. During his apprenticeship, Park became friends with Anderson's son Alexander and was introduced to Anderson's daughter Allison, who would later become his wife. In October 1788, Park enrolled at the University of Edinburgh, attending for four sessions studying medicine and botany. Notably, during his time at university, he spent a year in the natural history course taught by Professor John Walker. After completing his studies, he spent a summer in the Scottish Highlands, engaged in botanical fieldwork with his brother in law, James Dickson, a gardener and seed merchant in Covent Garden. In 1788 Dickson along with Sir James Edward Smith and six other fellows founded the Linnean Society of London. In 1792, Park completed his medical studies at University of Edinburgh. Through a recommendation by Joseph Banks he obtained the post of surgeon's mate on board the East India Company's ship Worcester. In February 1793 the Worcester sailed to Benkulen in Sumatra. Before departing, Park wrote to his friend Alexander Anderson in terms that reflect his Calvinist upbringing:

On his return in 1794, Park gave a lecture to the Linnaean Society, describing eight new Sumatran fish. The paper was not published until three years later. He also presented Banks with various rare Sumatran plants.

Mungo Park is credited with the original report of the Mountains of Kong a mountain range rumored to be located in West Africa, beginning near the source of the Niger River and spanning the majority of the African continent from east to west. This mountain range was published by geographer and cartographer James Rennell. Debate surrounding the existence of the mountain range occurred frequently, however, it was French officer and explorer Louis Gustave Binger officially reported that the Mountains of Kong did not exist during an expedition in 1887 1888.

A life size statue was erected to Park on the High Street in Selkirk in 1859. The monument was sculpted by Andrew Currie. In 1905 the monument had bronze figures added on the corners and two bas relief panels, all by Thomas J. Clapperton.

Circa 1836, Richard Adams Locke (author of the Great Moon Hoax) composed a fictional Lost Manuscript of Mungo Park, in which Park explores the interior of the hollow Earth. Mungo Park is mentioned in Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby Dick (Chapter 5: Breakfast), and several times, parodically, in Ernest Hemingway's short story "A Natural History of the Dead." Mungo Park appears as one of the two protagonists in T. C. Boyle's 1981 historical novel Water Music. Tom Fremantle's 2005 travelogue The Road to Timbuktu: Down the Niger on the Trail of Mungo Park details Mungo Park's biography and retraces his travels. Nigerian singer Burna Boy mentions Park in his song "Monsters You Made" on the 2020 album Twice as Tall.