Question

In 1805, a Scottish explorer named Mungo Park led an expedition of European geographers to find the source of the Niger River in Africa. The journey began with a party of 45 Europeans. During the expedition, most of these men perished from malaria. Their native guides and the other natives they encountered were seemingly unaffected. Use the data to construct an explanation for why the native Africans’ phenotype helped them survive.

Answer 1

Explanation:

Mungo Park (11 September 1771 – 1806) was a Scottish explorer of West Africa. After an exploration of the upper Niger River around 1796, he wrote a popular and influential travel book titled Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa in which he theorized the Niger and Congo merged to become the same river.

Mungo Park was an intrepid and daring traveller and explorer, hailing originally from Scotland. He explored West Africa during the tumultuous 18th century, and was actually the first Westerner to travel to the central part of the Niger River.

Reports that the expedition had met with disaster soon reached the settlements on the Gambia. In 1812 it was learned that when the explorers reached the rapids at Bussa, about 1,000 miles below Sansanding, they were attacked by local inhabitants, and Park was drowned.