Name: Mungo Park's Travels in the Interior of Africa
Author: Mungo Park

Ex Carta

The book saw the first appearance of the Mountains of Kong, a great chain spanning that part of the western continent. The range was to ‘subsequently appear on nearly all of the major commercial maps’ of the region until the early twentieth century. However, what is most remarkable about the Kong Mountains is that they never actually existed ‘except in the imaginations of explorers, mapmakers and merchants.’ 

Rennell had introduced them to his maps based on an anecdote by Park in which he claimed to have seen ‘some very distant mountains’, which he was told were ‘situated in a large and powerful kingdom called Kong’. The notion that the range existed was a useful one for geographers of the African Association, since it cohered with theories about the source of the Niger River and its eastward flow; for this, and other reasons, it was useful that there was such a great mountain chain as the Mountains of Kong – thus the facts were created to fit the theory. Rennell’s authority in the discipline had ‘an immediate impact upon the commercial maps industry’. Moreover, later accounts of the region embellished the Mountains with adjectives such as ‘snow covered’, ‘blue’, and even ‘gold rich’, enhancing the imaginary range with a mythic status akin to El Dorado.

Doubt as to the existence of the Mountains of Kong gradually increased as European exploration of West Africa progressed through the nineteenth century. The French explorer Louis-Gustave Binger (1856–1936) demonstrated authoritatively that they did not exist and eliminated them from his map of 1889, though reference to Kong Mountains still persisted in atlases well into the twentieth century.

Rennell’s map and the case of the Kong Mountains demonstrate that cartography is not simply an objective, empirical process of documenting reality. Even at its most scientifically authoritative, it is vulnerable to wishful thinking and unconscious leaps of the imagination. The Kong Mountains were never any more real than the Misty Mountains, yet for more than a century were treated as a solid geographical feature – something that only had to be reached in order to be climbed.

Mungo Park’s celebrated account of his West African expeditions was published with engraved maps by the eminent geographer James Rennell, illustrating regions then largely unknown to Europeans. One of these maps introduced the legendary Mountains of Kong – a vast range that appeared in atlases for more than a century despite never having existed outside the assumptions and imaginations of cartographers.

Scottish explorer and physician Mungo Park (1771–1806) undertook various expeditions to West Africa in the years 1795, 1796, and 1797. These trips were funded by the African Association, a London club founded in 1788, dedicated to the exploration and opening up to commerce of regions of West Africa then unknown to Europeans. Among its preeminent members was the naturalist and botanist Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820), who had been on board the HMS Endeavour with Captain Cook. Among the Association’s specific goals was discovery of the source of the Niger River and reaching Timbuktu, which ‘like El Dorado, held the explicit promise of riches and fame. No European explorer had been there and returned since the Middle Ages.’

Park’s account of his adventures, published as Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa in 1799, was an ‘immediate success’ and ‘has become a classic of travel literature’. Until the publication of the book, ‘hardly anything was known of the interior of Africa’ by Europeans. It was illustrated with maps by Association member and cartographer James Rennell (1742–1830), ‘one of the most prominent geographers of his day’.

Map showing the route of Mungo Park, from the mouth of the Gambia to Timbuktu

Title page and engraved portrait of Mungo Park

Map showing the developing geographical advancements in northern Africa towards the end of the 18th century

Map showing magnetic variation in Africa

The book saw the first appearance of the Mountains of Kong, a great chain spanning that part of the western continent. The range was to ‘subsequently appear on nearly all of the major commercial maps’ of the region until the early twentieth century. However, what is most remarkable about the Kong Mountains is that they never actually existed ‘except in the imaginations of explorers, mapmakers and merchants.’