Mary Kingsley (1) (1862–1900)

This is an absolutely fabulous tale of adventure and travel....I began it with a vague awareness that the author was related to Charles Kingsley (he of the unreadable 'Water Babies') and an expectation of perhaps a missionary journey.
I was utterly wrong...Miss Kingsley was his niece merely, a spirited and very funny writer with a distaste for missionary work. With a team of native porters etc, she embarks on a truly daredevil voyage through crocodile infested mangrove swamps, forests of show more gorillas, and a successful ascent of Mt Cameroon, despite endless rain and recalcitrant servants.
Despite utterly grim conditions, the author remains upbeat and entertaining, writing of the spectacular views, the mist shrouded forests and the dlorious flora, concluding "Why did I come to Africa? Why, who would not come to its twin brother hell itself for all the beauty and the charm of it?" show less

Kingsley was an English explorer and science writer during the Victorian era who specialized in traveling the African West Coast. This slim book is an excerpt from her Travels in West Africa, first published in 1897.
To say that Kingsley was fearless is an understatement. She traveled to Africa three times, gathering men from various tribes to be her guides and setting out for days in the jungle where she observed and noted everything, from animals, insects, trees and flowering plants and the show more actual land. She observed families of elephants and gorillas. She frequently shows more courage than the men by leaving them behind when they were afraid of the climb or cold weather, and she discovered a new direction to climb Mount Cameroon, which she did in long skirts. And while she seems to have been no-nonsense when dealing with her group, she maintains a dry sense of humor. Here's her description of ridding her canoe of a crocodile:

...he chose to get his front paws over the stern of my canoe, and endeavored to improve our acquaintance. I had to retire to the bows, to keep the balance right, and fetch him a clip on the snout with a paddle, when he withdrew, and I paddled into the very middle of the lagoon, hoping the water there was too deep for him or any of his friends to repeat the performance.

Her complete lack of vanity is rare. She attempts to clean up before meeting the local German Commander, but otherwise, her work is more imoptant than her comfort or appearance.

My face and particularly my lips are a misery to me, having been blistered all over by yesterday's sun, and last night I inadvertently whipped the skin all off on one cheek with the blanket, and it keeps on bleeding, and, horror of horrors, there is no tea until that water comes.

It's unfortunate that Kinglsey had such a short life. She died at thirty-seven, in Cape Town, where she was working as a volunteer nurse during the Second Boer War, after contracting typhoid. show less

What Mary Kingsley did was pretty incredible.... in 1893, she decided -- skirts and all-- to travel to West Africa to explore, collect fish and learn more about the religion of native people. Her account "Travels in West Africa" follows her adventures as she traipses through the jungle, paddles down rivers in canoes, and hikes up a mountain in the Cameroons in a storm. Her spirit of adventure and pluck is incredibly admirable and pulls together a wide ranging story, as she travels across the show more country and battles mosquitoes and leeches, is stalked by wild animals and meets with tribes who are shocked to see a white woman emerge from the forest. Sometimes the book gets a little bogged down in detail (...it could use a bit of an edit...) but otherwise it's an amazing tale of the adventures of an amazing woman. show less

“One thing about Negro and Bantu races is very certain, and that is their lives are dominated by a profound belief in witchcraft and its effects” Chapter Ten: The World of the Spirit – page 178

The book combines accounts of unbelievably arduous forest, river and mountain journeys (which she made in sole charge of her local bearers and guides) with disturbing comments on cannibalism, witchcraft and the fate of twins born in West Africa. She died aged only 38 – of enteric fever from show more nursing Boer prisoners of war – and was (at her earlier request) buried at sea off Simon’s Town.

Her account is lively, amusing and often self-deprecating although I was disturbed that she found the murderous colonial governor of Cameroon, Herr von Puttkamer “exceedingly good company”. show less