ACCOUNT

OF THE

LIFE OF MUNGO PARK.


Mungo Park was born on the 10th of September 1771, at Fowlshiels, a farm
occupied by his father, under the duke of Buccleugh, on the banks of the
Yarrow not far from the town of Selkirk. His father, who bore the same
name, was a respectable yeoman of Ettrick Forest. His mother, who is
still living, is the daughter of the late Mr. John Hislop, of Tennis, a
few miles higher up on the same river. The subject of this Memoir was
the seventh child, and third son of the family, which consisted of
thirteen children, eight of whom attained to years of maturity.

Prior to the time of Mungo Park's birth, the father had for many years
practised farming with assiduity and success on the estate at
Fowlshiels, where he died in 1792, after a long and exemplary life, at
the age of seventy-seven.

Among other estimable qualities which distinguished the father's
character, was a constant and unremitting attention to the education of
his children; a species of merit, which is indeed of common occurrence
among the Scottish farmers and peasantry, but which appears to have been
exemplary and remarkable in the present instance. His family being
numerous, he did not content himself with personally superintending
every part of their education; but, though far from being in affluent
circumstances, engaged a private teacher to reside in his house and