Boyle's first novel in a new translation. Mungo Park, a Scottish explorer of Africa, embarks on a quest for the Niger at the end of the eighteenth century, like many Europeans before him. Johnson, an African whose tumultuous fate once brought him into London’s high society before he was exiled back to Africa due to a duel, serves as his interpreter. A daring journey begins, an adventure that takes a fateful turn with the encounter of Ned Rise, a hapless drunkard. Accompanying them on this tour de force are whores, thugs, cannibals, tribal chiefs, and fortune seekers.