the caravan at Bambakoo, was highly gratified by the sight of his
friend. [Footnote: See Journal, p. 137.]

There being still a space of five hundred miles to be traversed (the
greater part of it through a desert) before Park could reach any
friendly country on the Gambia, he had no other resource but to wait
with patience for the first caravan of slaves that might travel the same
track. No such opportunity occurred till the latter end of April, 1797;
when a coffle, or caravan, set out from Kamalia under the direction of
Karfa Taura, in whose house he had continued during his long residence
of more than seven months at that place.

The coffle began its progress westwards on the 17th of April, and on the
4th of June reached the banks of the Gambia, after a journey of great
labour and difficulty, which afforded Park the most painful
opportunities of witnessing the miseries endured by a caravan of slaves
in their transportation from the interior to the coast. On the 10th of
the same month Park arrived at Pisania, from whence he had set out
eighteen months before; and was received by Dr. Laidley (to use his own
expression) as one risen from the grave. On the 15th of June he embarked
in a slave ship bound to America, which was driven by stress of weather
to the West Indies; and got with great difficulty, and under
circumstances of considerable danger, into the Island of Antigua. He
sailed from thence on the 24th of November, and after a short, but
tempestuous passage, arrived at Falmouth on the 22d of the following
month, having been absent from England two years and seven months.

Immediately on his landing he hastened to London, anxious in the
greatest degree about his family and friends, of whom he had heard
nothing for two years. He arrived in London before day-light on the