MUNGO PARK explored the Gambia and reached the Niger at Segu, finally establishing the fact that the great river flowed east. During his second voyage, Park drowned in the Niger near the Hausa state of Yauri.
Walter Oudney, Dixon Denham, and Hugh Clapperton journeyed from Tripoli across the desert to Lake Chad and thence westward to the Niger, proving that the river had no connection with the lake.
Alexander G. Laing crossed the desert from Tripoli to Tuat and thence to Timbuktu, the first 19th-century European to visit that city. Laing was killed on his return across the desert.
Clapperton led another Niger expedition from the coast to the interior. All members of the party become ill with malaria and dysentery. Richard Lander accompanied the expedition. Clapperton died in Sokoto in 1827.
