PARKE, Thomas Heazle.

My personal experiences in equatorial Africa as medical officer of the Emin Pasha relief expedition.

London, Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1891. 8vo (220 x 145 mm), pp. xxvi, [i, list of illustrations], [i, blank], 526, with a portrait-frontispiece and 17 plates; original green pictorial cloth; slightly dulled, light wear to extremities. First edition. Presentation copy, front free endpaper inscribed, ‘To Miss Parke with best wishes from the author, Netley, 9th November 91’. ‘Excepting Darkest Africa, no other journal of the entire course of the expedition has been published, and no other account of our experiences at Ipoto and Fort Bodo has hitherto seen the light in any shape’ (preface).‘Towards the end of January 1887, when stationed at Alexandria, Parke offered to accompany the Emin Pasha relief expedition formed under the leadership of Henry Morton Stanley who badly needed the services of a medical officer . . . . Throughout the expedition, in addition to all his medical and sanitary responsibilities, Parke commanded his own company, and proved himself as efficient as any in the management of men. On several occasions, the complicated manoeuvres necessary to get all the large, unhealthy, and semi-mutinous expedition together in Emins domain near Lake Albert meant that Parke was in independent command of sections of the company for long periods. He attracted the devotion of a pygmy girl servant. Stanley asserted that without Parke the expedition would have been a failure. He ministered to the wants of the Zanzibari porters and locally recruited Africans, as well as to the eleven Europeans who accompanied the expedition, with all the patience and skill possible. He attended Stanley in two bouts of severe illness, almost certainly saving his life in April 1889’ (Oxford DNB).

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