* * * * *
"In the afternoon, the king came to see us, followed by a man with a book
under his arm, which was said to have been picked up in the Niger after
the loss of our countryman. It was enveloped in a large cotton cloth, and
our hearts beat high with expectation as the man was slowly unfolding it,
for by its size we guessed it to be Mr. Park's journal; but our
disappointment and chagrin were great, when, on opening the book, we
discovered it to be an old nautical publication of the last century. The
title-page was missing, but its contents were chiefly tables of logarithms.
It was a thick royal quarto, which led us to conjecture that it was a
journal; between the leaves we found a few loose papers of very little
consequence indeed; one of them contained two or three observations on the
height of the water in the Gambia; one was a tailor's bill on a Mr.
Anderson; and another was addressed to Mr. Mungo Park, and contained an
invitation to dinner,--the following is a copy of it:--
'Mr.
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