The fatal termination of Park’s career in 1805 lulled public curiosity for a time, but it presently revived.  The geographical mind was still excited by the mysterious stream which evaporation or dispersion drained into the Lake-swamps of Wangara, and to this was added not a little curiosity concerning the lamented and popular explorer’s fate.  We find instructions concerning Mungo Park issued even to cruizers collecting political and other information upon the East African coast; e.g., to Captain Smee, sent in 1811 by the Bombay Government.  His companion, Lieutenant Hardy, converted Usagara, west of the Zanzibar seaboard, into “Wangarah,” and remarks, “a white man, supposed to be Park, is said to have travelled here twenty years ago” ("Observations,” &c.).

About ten years after Mungo Park’s death, two expeditions were fitted out by Government to follow up his discovery.  Major Peddie proceeded to descend the Niger, and Captain Tuckey to ascend the Congo.  We have nothing to say of the former journey except that, as in the latter, every chief European officer died—­Major Peddie, Captain Campbell, Lieutenant Stokoe, and M. Kummer, the naturalist.  The expedition, consisting of 100 men and 200 animals, reached Kakundy June 13, 1817, and there fell to pieces.  Concerning the Zaire Expedition, which left Deptford on February 16, 1816, a few words are advisable.

The personnel was left to the choice of the leader, Commander J. K. Tuckey, R. N. (died).  There were six commissioned officers—­ Lieutenant John Hawkey, R.N. (died); Mr. Lewis Fitz-maurice, master and surveyor; Mr. Robert Hodder and Mr. Robert Beecraft, master’s mates; Mr. John Eyre, purser (died); and Mr. James McKerrow, assistant surgeon.  Under these were eight petty officers, four carpenters, two blacksmiths, and fourteen able seamen.  The marines numbered one sergeant, one corporal, and twelve privates.  Grand total of combatants, forty-nine.  To these were added five “savants”:  Professor Chetien Smith, a Norwegian botanist and geologist (died); Mr. Cranch, collector of objects of natural history (died); Mr. Tudor, comparative anatomist (died); Mr. Galway, Irishman and volunteer naturalist (died); and “Lockhart, a gardener” (of His Majesty’s Gardens, Kew).  There were two Congo negroes, Benjamin Benjamins and Somme Simmons; the latter, engaged as a cook’s mate, proved to be a “prince of the blood,” which did not prevent his deserting for fear of the bushmen.

The allusions made to Mr. Cranch, a “joined methodist,” and a “self-made man,” are not complimentary.  “Cranch, I fear,” says Professor Smith, “by his absurd conduct, will diminish the liberality of the captain towards us:  he is like a pointed arrow to the company.”  And, again, “Poor Cranch is almost too much the object of jest; Galway is the principal banterer."In the Professor’s remarks on the” fat purser,"we can detect the foreigner, who, on such occasions, should never be mixed up with Englishmen.