Two rivers: Travels in West Africa on the trail of Mungo Park

by Peter Hudson

Book by Hudson, Peter

Paperback

First published October 24, 1991

About the author

Peter Hudson is a writer, farmer and charity worker. He has been visiting Africa for over thirty years, and indeed there are few parts of the continent he has not seen from the back of a bush taxi, donkey or bicycle. He has written four books about what he has found there, including his most recent, Under an African Sky, which tells the story of a village he has been visiting annually for tweny years. Peter lives in mid-Wales with his family.

Reviews

[Tim Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this book a long time ago, set it aside for a move, and promptly misplaced it for the past few years. A month ago or so, I found it and the book it follows in a way, and read it anew. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, even though as a current read, it is somewhat old news, being set around 1990. But the world in which the author passes, that of village life in Mali following in the footsteps of Mungo Park, who passed that was 200 years earlier, isn't probably all that different today than when he wrote about it. Who is Mungo Park and why would somebody follow him through a tough part of West Africa? Mungo Park was a Scottish physician and botanist who in 1795, with the support of London's Africa Society, set off to the unknown interior of West Africa, primarily to figure out where the rivers went to. As a hydrologist, I can appreciate this Scottish lad in his exploration. I can also appreciate that his voyage, unlike most of his fellow Europeans of that era, was not looking to convert people, steal them, steal their stuff, or otherwise cause them grief, but to learn about who lived where and where the rivers began and where they went. Peter Hudson decided that he would follow as closely as possible, these footsteps and tell the modern story. He weaves back and forth between his travels and Mungo's route, figuring out which villages still exist and many times changed a name, but were in the same place. Every now and then, he finds local lore that remember a European arriving before the French colonizers. It's a great story and well told. I'm glad I found this book and read it. I am now reading the original account by Mungo Park's of his 1795-96 exploration. Full circle.

[John Benson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book at a used book sale at my library and really enjoyed it. I had not heard of this author before, nor do I know this area of Africa well (having grown up in East Africa). While Mungo Park's travels from the late 1700s are lost in the narrative, I enjoyed the author's descriptions of The Gambia and Mali as he traveled through them in the early 1990s, trying to follow Mungo Park's first voyage to West Africa. The book allowed me to get a sense of village life and the landscape of this area of Africa. Though the book is more than 30 years old, I imagine village life has remained much the same in these countries.

[Lester · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clearly not for me. However, Hudson is a good travel writer. His prose brought a lot of the characters and places in Gambia to life for me. Unfortunately, his 'adventures' were too monotonic for me, and perhaps not adventurous enough. I had to stop and move on.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the history of mungo park… and loved the descriptions of markets, travel, weather:.: very similar to my
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