ABSTRACT
In her recent book Imperial Eyes, Mary Louise Pratt retells one of the famous stories of European exploration. It is Mungo Park's moment of crisis in darkest Africa, when—naked and alone after being robbed and left for dead by local banditti, and prey to "savage animals and men still more savage"—his rising despair is dispersed by a vision, or what Wordsworth would have called a spot of time:
At this moment, painful as my reflections were, the extraordinary beauty of a small moss, in fructification, irresistibly caught my eye. I mention this to show from what trifling circumstances the mind will sometimes derive consolation; for though the whole plant was not larger than the top of one of my fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate conformation to its roots, leaves, and capsula, without admiration. Can that Being (thought I) who planted, watered, and brought to perfection, in this obscure part of the world, a thing which appears of so small importance, look with unconcern upon the situation and sufferings of creatures formed after his own image?—surely not! 1
