At the bottom of the three stamps issued in
1971 by Gambia to commemorate the bi-centenary of the birth of Mungo
Park is a map which shows “Park’s route to Kaarta and the Niger”
marked with a black line along the Gambia river. In an article by
Oliver Andrew in the May 2007 issue of Gibbons Stamp Monthly
the author writes, “the route taken by Mungo Park on his way to the
Niger, as shown on the stamps, follows the River Gambia to the point
where it leave Senegal. Park’s journal, though, makes it clear that he
left the river not far upstream from Pisania, his starting point. He
then struck overland, on horseback, slightly north of east, towards
the edge of the stamp; he did not travel, in the Gambia at least, in a
dugout canoe as shown on SG 285 [SCN 271].”
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