Park

Park, Muxao (1771-1806), the African traveller, was the seventh son of a Selkirkshire farmer. He was educated at Edinburgh University, and became a naval surgeon. In 1792 he went to Sumatra on board the Worcester, and wrote an account of eight new species of fish he discovered there, for the Linn?ean Society. Three years later, by the influence of Sir Joseph Banks, he was employed by the African Association, and in the course of the year 1796 penetrated to the sources of the Niger. In 1799 he published his Travels in the Interior of Africa, and until the end of 1804 lived the quiet life of a country doctor at Peebles. Early in 1805 he took command of Lord Hobart's Niger expedition. When the party reached Bammako it had been reduced by disease from forty-four to eleven; and the rest, persevering in their course, seem to have perished at Boussa, where they were attacked by the natives and drowned in trying to escape. An account of the second journey appeared in 1815.