Travels in West Africa

by Mary H. Kingsley, Anthony Brandt (Introduction)

In 1893, defying every convention of Victorian womanhood, Mary Kingsley set off alone for West Africa to collect botanical specimens. Unaccompanied except for native guides, she plunged boldly into forbidding jungles, often the first European―and almost always the first white woman―ever to arrive. Undaunted by tales of ferocious cannibals, she made friends with the tribes she met and collected priceless samples of flora and fauna. Along the way she fought off crocodiles with a paddle and hit a leopard over the head with a pot. When she fell into a trap lined with sharp sticks, she was saved by her voluminous crinolines―for she always dressed like a lady. Travels in West Africa is a book as vivid and unforgettable as the extraordinary woman herself.   “The charm of West Africa is a painful it gives you pleasure when you are out there, but when you are back here it gives you pain by calling you . . . Come back, come back, this is your home.”―Mary Kingsley   National Geographic Adventure Classics is a series that celebrates the “100 greatest adventure books of all time,” as compiled by a panel of experts for National Geographic Adventure. These titles have been carefully selected for their adrenaline quotient and their status as classics of the adventure genre.

Genres: Travel, Africa, Nonfiction, History, Adventure, Memoir, Classics

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1897

About the author

Mary Henrietta Kingsley was born in Islington, London on 13 October 1862, the daughter and oldest child of doctor, traveler, and writer George Kingsley and Mary Bailey.

Kingsley wrote two books about her experiences: Travels in West Africa (1897), which was an immediate best-seller, and West African Studies (1899), both of which granted her vast respect and prestige within the scholarly community. Some newspapers, however, refused to publish reviews of her works, such as the Times colonial editor Flora Shaw. Though some argue this is likely on the grounds that her beliefs countered the imperialistic intentions of the British Empire and the notion that Africans were inferior peoples, this is not entirely true, as she did support British traders and British indirect rule in Africa, and thus cannot entirely explain her sometimes unfavorable reception.

During the Second Boer War, Kingsley travelled to Cape Town and volunteered as a nurse. She was stationed at Simon's Town hospital, where she treated Boer prisoners of war. After contributing her services to the ill for about two months, she developed symptoms of typhoid and died on 3 June 1900. In accordance with her wishes, she was buried at sea.

Reviews

[Kavita · Rating 1 out of 5]

That was an excruciating read! I can't imagine why other reviewers are so enamoured of this book! Admittedly, Kingsley was a remarkable woman for her time, but she is also a remarkable idiot when it comes to her so-called theories about "the African". By the end of the book, I had completely lost any admiration for this woman who did so many incredible things, but couldn't think an original thought to save her life.

So here are a few gems:

I own I regard not only the African, but all coloured races, as inferior - inferior in kind not in degree - to the white races ...

Both polygamy and slavery are, for divers reasons, essential to the well-being of Africa - at any rate for those vast regions of it which are agricultural ...

It is not necessary to treat them brutally, in fact it does not pay to do so, but it is necessary to treat them severely, to keep a steady hand over them.  Never let them become familiar, never let them see you have made a mistake.  When you make a mistake in giving them an order let it be understood that that way of doing a thing is a peculiarly artful dodge of your own, and if it fails, that it is their fault.

And as if the racism were not enough, she also brings forth this gem for our edification. I feel certain that a black man is no more an undeveloped white man than a rabbit is an undeveloped hare; and the mental difference between the two races is very similar to that between men and women among ourselves.  A great woman, either mentally or physically, will excel an indifferent man, but no woman ever equals a really great man. What a moron!

Going in, I was quite prepared to deal with a lot of racism, and even quite a bit of sexism in the course of the narrative. I was prepared to overlook this. But I was not prepared to get hit over the head with blanket statements on the inferiority of non-white people and females. Nor was I prepared to sit and read for pages and pages of theorising about how exactly the different tribes are inferior to white people and who is better than whom. I wonder who died and made Kingsley god?

The problem with this book, unlike with many other authors of this period, is that Kingsley set herself out as an expert and dedicated almost half of the book to racist theorising, interjected with some choice bits of sexism and nationalism. Kingsley proses on about how best to exploit the area in white people's interests, more specifically British interests. She specifically advocates landgrabbing from the locals because really, what's the harm in it?

English Government officials have very little and very poor encouragement given them if they push inland and attempt to enlarge the sphere of influence, which their knowledge of local conditions teaches them requires enlarging, because the authorities at home are afraid other nations will say we are rapacious landgrabbers. Well, we always have been, and they will say it anyhow; and where after all is the harm in it?

What a fucking joke of a human being! By the end of the book, I thoroughly disliked this woman and wouldn't have hesitated to push her in a river full of crocodiles if I ever met her. But all this apart, the book itself is dry and hard to read.

One main problem is that there is no clarification of terms and concepts that are unclear to us in modern times. For example, the use of the word "Negro" is not clear at all. She uses it in a pretty non-racist sense (I know, shocking!) as a tribe name but it is unclear which tribe it actually refers to. Similarly, she talks about conflicts between European governments that are now merely a footnote in history. An annotated edition would make this book far more comprehensible.

Another problem is that the woman lies to make her stories appear more fun. One example is how she found cannibal remains among the Fan tribe. The Fans were never cannibals but the white people had spread these rumours in order to make it easier to enslave them. This made me question her every story and I couldn't really believe most of her "black people are so funny!" tales anymore after that.

The author's so-called humour began to grate after a while as it was incessant and necessarily included more stereotyping. The narrative also got pretty repetitive as she described the scenery endlessly as well as her adventures of falling and getting up. There is only so much interest in reading about someone falling into a swamp for the nth time. It didn't help that Kingsley believed in verbosity. I don't believe I am saying this but she should have been condemned to tell her stories on Twitter. That would work exceedingly well with her racism anyway!

I am very underwhelmed with this shit. But what do I know? I am neither white nor male nor English. I am just a coloured female dumbo.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just came across a lovely bit, as Kingsley laments people's over-reliance on water filters to protect them from the many diseases rampant in Africa:

"A good filter is a very fine thing for clearing drinking water of hippopotami, crocodiles, water snakes, catfish, etc., and I dare say it will stop back sixty per cent. of the live or dead African natives that may be in it; but if you think it is going to stop back the microbe of marsh fever--my good sir, you are mistaken."

Roughly contemporary with that other great woman explorer, Isabella Bird, Mary Kingsley is a very different kind of explorer. She was not a missionary or humanitarian; her travels in Africa were scientific in nature and purpose. But she displays the same can-do attitude about the many trials and struggles she faces. Her prejudices and outlook are very much the product of her time, but she exhibits a genuine appreciation for the black Africans she spent time with. She trusted herself with a group of cannibals to escort her for some of her journeys, and she liked them better than several other tribes.

Most enjoyable was her droll sense of dry humor; I didn't notice it much until about a third of the way into the book, and then it was a delight (see example above). She feels impelled (as Bird often did) to relate facts and figures regarding commerce and trade or geographical facts--boring. She's at her best when describing her own adventures or giving information about the various religious practices of the peoples she encountered.

[Margitte · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a bucket list read..

For a woman to travel alone into unknown territory in the late 1800s was unusual, although she was not the first to do so. Here is the Top 10-Female adventurers known to our modern world. It was actually this list that put me on Kingsley's track.

I was hoping to find more emotion in Mary Kingsley's adventures, but instead found a determined soul who aimed to study various aspects of African cultures, as well as the fauna and flora and report on it. Often it felt like reading a letter from a friend, when it was clear that Mary wanted to share more than just facts with her reader.

Therefor, this book is different from any other travelogues found on the market. There was a sterile kind of approach to the writing, although the author did share some ideas about her believes and mission, while fighting off crocodiles, canoeing through dangerous rapids, and often camping in the open where no white woman has ever been.

Upon her arrival on the Gold Coast, she learned that there were two graves dug daily for white people. Often it was necessary to hastily dug a third one by mid afternoon. If they did not perish on land, they did so at sea approaching the beautiful but formidable coast of Sierra Leone. The government official who showed the graveyard to her, laconically pointed out that he visited the place everyday, so that he could get use to the place before he stayed permanently in it. After leaving Accra, a dreadful epidemic wiped out half the white population in a matter of a few weeks.

Needles to say, a beetle-hunt, battling beetles the size of pie dishes was always dangerous. They flew into her hair and smartly nipped her. Bitten by flies, ants, perhaps a scorpion, mosquitoes, and neatly tripped by sweet potato vines, hitting her head against tree stumps, were part of her daily routine.

She made friends with cannibal tribes, criticized missionaries for interfering with African cultures, but promoted British trade. Some reviewers describe her humor as droll, and her writing style as a ripping yarn. It might be the case, but her travels were no laughing matter. Others criticized her writing as a colorless, overladen, detailed photograph. Sometimes it was, since she gathered scientific information in various disciplines, but other times a warm, humane conversational tone came through.

As though the animals and insects were not menacing enough, she also encountered the Carica papaya on the cost. According to local legend the fruit mesmerized the white visitors. To the newcomer it is a dreadful fruit. for no sooner does and old coaster set eyes on it than he straightway says, "Pawpaws are awfully good for the digestion, and even if you just hang a tough fowl or a bit of goat in the tree among the leaves, it gets tender in no time..."

Mary called it a hymn of praise to an ordinary fruit. Yet, legend had it that a young book keeper with a fidgetting indigestion took such a fruit to his room on recommendation of his new colleagues at the dinner table, and totally disappeared from the face of the earth. The next morning, they found the pawpaw on his bed and after sending out a search party for him, took the fruit back to the table. At twelve o'clock chop(meal) they sliced it open and found nine steel trouser-buttons, a Waterbury watch, and the poor young fellow's keys. For instead of digesting his dinner with that pawpaw, the pawpaw took charge and digested him. Upon opening the pawpaw at the table, they sort of interrupted the fruit's grip on starting on the steel things.

She thought the fruit was overrated, but once did hang a leg of goat no mortal man could have got tooth into, on to a pawpaw tree with a bit of string attached to it for the night. In the morning it was clean gone, string and all; but whether it was the pepsine, papaine, or a purloining pagan that was the cause of its departure, there was no evidence to show for it.

Her description of the people, food, traditions, and nature were sometimes awe inspiring. Like her description of a waterfall she planned to conquer in her canoe. I went across the island to see the great Alemba rapid, of which I had heard so much, that lay between it and the north bank. Nobler pens than mine must sing its glory and its grandeur. Its face was like nothing I have seen before. Its voice was like nothing I have heard. Those other rapids are not to be compared to it; they are wild, headstrong, and malignant enough, but the Alemba is not as they. It does not struggle, and writhe, and brawl among the rocks, but comes in a majestic springing dance, a stretch of waltzing foam, triumphant.

From the blurb: Unaccompanied except for native guides, she plunged boldly into forbidding jungles, often the first European--and almost always the first white woman--ever to arrive. Undaunted by tales of ferocious cannibals, she made friends with the tribes she met and collected priceless samples of flora and fauna. Along the way she fought off crocodiles with a paddle and hit a leopard over the head with a pot. When she fell into a trap lined with sharp sticks, she was saved by her voluminous crinolines--for she always dressed like a lady. Travels in West Africa is a book as vivid and unforgettable as the extraordinary woman herself.

She packed her mending kit with which she meticulously repaired the ribbons and laces on her dresses. She caught her own fish, and steered her own canoes. She climbed the highest mountains, and conqured the densest forest, with an unreleting optimism and contrary to ... uhummm... our womanly way, without complaints. For her it was business as usual. She was respected wherever she went, and showed respect to everyone she came in contact with.

What, to me, was unusual, was her fearlessness and willingness to take it as it come. She lived with different people, including the African tribes, which, at the time, was not the intention of any European woman, and certainly not a British dame of any repute. She is known for criticizing Christian missionaries and their work for supplanting pre-existing African cultures without proving any real benefits in return. She finally manage to complete a book her father, the well respected medical doctor, author, and traveler George Kingsley left unfinished at his passing. In the end she accomplished more and received tremendous accolades for her contributions to science.

It became a tedious book to finish. However, her story reminded me of The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert without the novelistic elements, yet interesting enough to finish it.

I hope someone will one day attempt a novel on her life. She was indeed remarkable in so many ways.

[Diane · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book and at a different point in my life I would probably have enjoyed it. I actually did enjoy what I read - about 60 pages, but I simply did not want to read anymore. Mary Kingsley is a fascinating person but her comments are very late 19th century colonial comments for the most part. I think I would prefer a biography of Kingsley. And one gift to myself in retirement is not reading what I don't want to (most of the time)

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

(From my Amazon.com review):

A most remarkable woman

If you enjoyed Katherine Hepburn's spunky performance in "The African Queen" or delight when Elizabeth Peters' fictional Amelia Peabody prods a villain with her trusty umbrella, you will undoubtedly enjoy the real adventures of Mary Kingsley in Africa. At thirty years of age, her parents having both died, the sheltered Miss Kingsley set off for the continent that had for so long ruled her imagination. Setting herself up as a trader in West Africa, she set out across treacherous swamps and uncharted regions, going where few white men - let alone women - had ever been.

Kingsley wrote of her travels with a self-deprecating wit, impaling many of the racial and cultural prejudices of her day. She vastly preferred, for example, the uncoverted "cannibal Fans" to the tribes influenced by missionaries. She distrusted the motives of the "civilizing" European forces, with good reason.

My copy of this affordable Everyman edition, ably edited and introduced by Elspeth Huxley, is thick with favorite underlined passages. She writes of harrowing experiences as if she were recounting events at an ice cream social. Indeed, invariably dressed in proper Victorian garb throughout all her travels, she once escaped impalement in a game trap set with spikes - her voluminous skirts saved her. Of an eight-foot crocodile attempting to climb into her canoe, whom Kingsley dealt a repelling blow with a paddle, she remarked, "This was only a pushing young creature who had not learnt manners."

Travelling without the vast entourage that other explorers, such as Stanley, seemed to find necessary, she possessed an independence which bordered on eccentricity. She was, as Elspeth Huxley notes, at heart a lone wolf, always preferring to go her own way and make her own judgements about those she encountered. The character of this indomitable, fascinating woman shines through her account of her travels.

Discussed this book, along with One Dry Season by Caroline Alexander at a Reading Genres book club meeting in Jun 2017 devoted to the theme "A Love Story: With a twist." My take on the theme was that Kingsley was in love with Africa -- and the freedom it afforded her after a life of miserable servitude and confinement."

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

"...no sooner did I see him than I ducked under the rocks, and remembered thankfully that leopards are said to have no power of smell. But I heard his observation on the weather, and the flip-flap of his tail on the ground. Every now and then I cautiously took a look at him with one eye round a rock-edge, and he remained in the same position. My feelings tell me he remained there twelve months*, but my calmer judgment puts the time down at twenty minutes; and at last, on taking another cautious peep, I saw he was gone…. It was an immense pleasure to have seen the great creature like that. He was so evidently enraged and baffled by the uproar and dazzled by the floods of lightning that swept down into the deepest recesses of the forest,"
This was Mary Kingsley's account in meeting a leopard in the forest during a typhoon. Extraordinary!
My adventures with bugs in the garden pales in comparison.
Who knew this prim Victorian lady was, of her own making, destined to be one of the greatest explorer of her time. Looking after her sickly mother and helping her traveling father, Dr. Kinsley, translate scientific texts. She occupied her time reading books in her fathers library, given the choice in reads, it is
no wonder that her interest in far and exotic places grew, as did her dream of travel. In 1892, her time as a nurse and dutiful daughter came to an end with the death of her mother, three months later followed by her father, from rheumatic fever during his travels.
Mary Kinsley did seek the counsel of friends, who advised her against it and experts, requesting that she collect specimens on during travels; dressed in deep mourning silk she forged ahead with her plans.
I admired the fact that she did not allow being lady and traveling alone deter her, despite the male protestations.
Mary Kingsley was not only taught by Africans how to survive the jungles, she
learned customs and the language
during the two years she lived with them.
I did state adventures: stalked by a cannibal, whacks a crocodile snout trying to climb into her canoe, tickles a hippo behind the ear to send it away, the first woman to climb Mount Cameroon, trekked on a broken ankle,
escape a hippo trap. “Save for a good many bruises, here I was with the fullness of my skirt tucked under me, sitting on nine ebony spikes some twelve inches long, in comparative comfort.” (a new found respect for the corset).

Travels to West Africa is a book made of two travels: Travels to West Africa is of her expeditions; West African Studies- Miss Kingsley's travel to finish her father's work on Fetish, African
religious rites, rituals and ceremonies.

There are so many aspects to this book
to go into, but, frankly, I don't want to.
She is a good writer, painstakingly so-I did doze off a few time, my apologies Miss Kingsley. Her humor* and personality in various situations were enjoyable. This book is ideally suited for those with interests in anthropological exploration, biography and travel diaries; perhaps not the novel reader.

[Jazzy Lemon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kingsley loved Africa, this is the tale of her first excursion on a scientific expedition as a young, single woman. She rallied against popular English belief and Christian missionaries and fell in love with the people.

[Bruce Hesselbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

A remarkably fearless explorer and scientist, Mary Kingsley traveled to areas where the mortality rate among Europeans was extremely high, to cannibal villages, and to rivers full of crocodiles. One of her amazing feats was to climb Mount Cameroon (13,255') by a new route through constant rain. When her native guides gave out, she made the final ascent by herself in heavy, cumbersome Victorian dress.
Her writing style is a bit uneven. At her best she can be enormously witty and entertaining, as in her luminous description of a tea in swarms of mosquitos, or her tale of the sudden emergence of Ikun. She found the African belief in fetishes to be fascinating and she made a special effort to study them and penetrate the midset that perpetuated them, not in a condescending way, but with a scientist's interest in understanding what made primitive societies tick.
At other times, when she lapses into conventional description, her style could stand a little editorial tightening. I cannot help but feel that if she had been less modest she would have written a more exciting book, but the reader will be grateful for the book that she did write.

[Laura McDonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a long book, but Kingsley's excellent sense of humor makes the dry parts bearable. She's at her best when writing in travel journal style. Can you believe this woman went alone, in 1893, to remote areas in West Africa crawling with cannibal tribes? Some areas had never been visited by a white man, much less a white woman. Her views on African problems and issues at the time are very sensible and logical to the modern reader; she never falls into the trap of basing her opinions on prejudice. This is evidenced by the fact that she esteems the most feared cannibal tribe, the Fans, as her preferred hosts and traveling companions.

The rest of the book that is not travel narrative is her thoughts and research on Africa and its "fetishes", which is what seems to be her word for the religious and traditional customs of the natives. This fetish talk is interesting in some parts, especially when she is talking about her favorites, the Fans. But it gets tedious toward the end. In the Preface she notes that this book was originally published in a much longer version that had since been cut down substantially. She probably should have cut more. Also, it would have made more sense to put some of the meatier chapters on fetish toward the beginning to give the reader a suitable introduction to her interests and the tribes with which she comes in contact.

As a historical piece, this book is a must-read for anyone remotely interested in the history of West Africa, particularly at this period of encroaching European influence. As a travel book, it is amazing for the fact that this woman did what she did. I have read a little history on Mary Kingsley and found that she was initially driven to West Africa with not only curiosity but also suicidal tendencies. Several members of her family had just died, and she felt little sympathy with the conservative, late Victorian English society that surrounded her. So she fled abroad, knowing full well that over 70% of white men who went to West Africa succumbed to fever or other maladies. Turns out that West Africa treated her well, and she went on to travel for several more years. She eventually succumbed to typhoid in South Africa in 1900.

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book as an arm chair traveler. I have wanted to go to African and see the place where man first strode on two feet and left Africa at the horn in Yemen and spread across the globe. I wanted to see dawn over the Serengeti Plain and lions, giraffes and elephants in the wild. I wanted to see the Great Rift Family which is splitting Africa in two and see Mt. Kilimanjaro. Alas, stage 4 cancer precludes international travel with its concomitant risk of disease that my compromised immune system couldn't fight off.

This book was written by a plucky, gutsy woman from England who traveled through Western Africa in 1893. Alone. She was a scientist and collecting specimens of fish and taking measurements of animals and seeing the range various animals trod. Her description of the landscape was as I hoped and wanted. Her description of the animals as well.

I only gave it a 4 star rating instead of a 5 because she referred to men as the " superior sex". Few men would or could follow in her footsteps, especially today. She also had the white chauvinistic attitude and sense of superiority towards Native Africans. She stated that the complete way to exploit and extract the Gold, oil, palm oil, etc was best achieved by polygamy and slavery. She even used the "N" word several times. If she had not given a blueprint as to how to rape Africa of her earth riches and put down the African people and just stuck to descriptions of plants, animals and the landscape with out the discrimination, the book would have been more enjoyable and would have been a 5 star rating. But, alas, those were the prevailing colonizing attitudes of the day.

I must say she had guts and pluck to spare

I do recommend this book to people who love Africa. But you must make allowances and realize the time she was writing and not take of fence at her narrow provincial sexist and racial views.

[Kathryn Raphael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my all time favorite books.

It was written in the 1890s, so it takes a few pages to get into the period English, but I was fascinated right away.

This is a hilarious, well written, thought provoking autobiography filled with adventure and touching accounts of humanity at it's finest.

[Tania · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting in places, but largely rather dry and a bit of a struggle to get through. Also, considering what she did, I thought she might be a bit more progressive in her views, which were jarring to reading.

[Amerynth · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 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.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kingsley is possibly unique in her perspective as a single white woman traveling alone in Africa in the late 19th century. While her views on race and culture are more narrow than ours, I think she conveys considerably more respect for the Africans she works with and considerably less Victorian judgmentalism than most of her contemporaries. Her style is witty and often self-deprecating.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not interesting enough to be an adventure.
Not descriptive enough to be a travel book.
Not funny or witty enough to be a good read.
meh.

[Carmen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can honestly and truly say that there are only two things I am proud of -one is that Doctor Günter has approved of my fishes, and the other is that I can paddle an Ogowé canoe. Pace, style, steering and all, 'All same for one' as if I were an Ogowé African. A strange, incongrous pair of things: but I often wonder what are the things other people are really most proud of; it would be a quaint and repaying subject for investigation.

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t read all of this, but I’m taking it as a read to account for all of the other reading I do for uni that can’t be counted towards my Goodreads goal!

Mary Kingsley was a fascinating woman and her travels through colonial Africa as a white, Victorian woman throw up some interesting discussions. Plus, she’s funny.

[Ruth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poof. That was hard work! Of course, this is a book written by a Victorian woman over 150 years ago, and she’s a Brit in colonial Africa, white and privileged. A lot of it grates compared to today’s thinking. I didn’t mind the first half of the book but once she got onto fetishes she lost me. There was no ability to précis anything: every learned detail was included. I did like her humour and understatements- nicely done. But overall a book half the length would have been twice as good.

[Wayne Jordaan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beskirted Mary Kingsley defied societal norms and undertook two journeys during the 1890s to West Africa in search of "Fan, Fetish and Fish." And am I glad she did, because this narration of one of those journeys, had me in stiches for most of it.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had never heard of Mary Henrietta Kingsley before, and I'm really glad that I have now read her book and know about this courageous woman.

It is a little slow at the beginning. The preface is a good introduction (so don't skip it!), which leads you to Mary's life and circumstances that leads her to start traveling in West Africa in the late 1800s at the age of 30. In those days, where no single woman traveled to West Africa for the sake of it, Mary was one of a kind and when you read this book - you can't believe how nonchalant she can come across in the way she describes her journey.

Initially, her journals were not intentionally written to become a book, which is why I feel it's hard to get quite into it in the beginning. There isn't as much of an explanation and you are thrown into this unknown territory in the middle of the jungle in West Africa (don't even know which countries) and you find yourself accompanying this woman in swampy rivers and carnivorous tribesman. She comes across that this is no big deal and she will just find a way to befriend strangers along the way, even though she can't speak their language.

In any case, she seems to be on a quest to go to this British factory for some trade... to be honest, I've never understood what she was looking for. But in some ways, it doesn't matter, because it is all about the journey. After the third chapter, you start to learn her writing style as well as getting a bit of her whimsical nature. She does an excellent job of detailing every picture of her journey, in which you can literally imagine yourself on the canoe with her.

But at the same time, you can still feel the mystery of the jungle and wonder how on Earth was she traveling with her big wide skirt that Victorian women would wear back in those days. How did she not get sick, after all she went through? And how was she not scared to be a female amongst stranger men at all times?

It's quite an amazing story, and the more you read it, the more fascinating it becomes. So I recommend sticking to it to the end.

I'm finding myself getting very interested in these books about the rainforest and unknown territory. It reminded me a lot of Lost City of the Z, but in this case, it's a woman traveler and it is her words that we are reading - that makes it more incredible!

[M.C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aventuras reales de una mujer victoriana de las que se van a África con su té y su quitasol y se meten por los más peligrosos ríos, selvas y montañas, y nos deja vividas descripciones de sus experiencias. Interesante para conocer el África colonial desde el punto de vista de una inglesa, un tanto excéntrica, como ella misma dice y muy poco convencional, que se sintió liberada cuando pudo escapar de sus parientes y de Inglaterra y campar a sus anchas por tierras salvajes, rodeada de porteadores negros y galantes caballeros europeos que le facilitaban de todo por mera cortesía o quizás admiración. Dado que no es una novela, a veces se hace repetitivo en sus descripciones y bastante largo. La autora, dotada de un singular sentido del humor, no nos ahorra algún comentario jocoso (incluso alguna escena picantona de ella quitándose la blusa y mostrando los pechos ante los negros) y críticas nada sutiles hacia los misioneros y los europeos que querían cambiar la mentalidad de los nativos. Divertida y valiente mujer que murió joven y en África, y no precisamente de exploración, sino en la guerra de los Bóers, atendiendo a los prisioneros.

[Calzean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kingsley's book covers her travels to West Africa in the 1890s. She describes her adventures canoeing up ravines and rapids, walking through swamps and mangroves, climbing a 13 000 ft mountain and dealing with missionaries, traders and the locals who include cannibals. All this by herself with just a small band of native carriers that she has to manage, coerce and trick into doing what she wants. And all to collect samples of fish.

Initially she did not seem enamoured by the locals but gradually she saw their human sides and enjoyed their company, traditions, religions and culture (what she called fetishes).

An awe inspiring adventurer who unfortunately died a few years later during the Boer War.

[Websterdavid3 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mary tells an incredible story of a 19th century brit woman freed to explore w. africa by confluence of money and male relative's deaths.
Distaff stiff upper lip-- how did she portage canoes while holding up her long dress?

It is written in Victorian (?) language; first third of the book i hardly could keep reading; then my mind transformed and i clicked in, the language gap disappeared. Curious about your experience of that.

[Marije · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aan de ene kant veel humor in haar reisbeschrijvingen, aan de andere kant ongelooflijk veel in haar persoonsbeschrijvingen. Aangezien dit boek in de Victoriaanse tijd geschreven is geeft dat laatste 'n interessant inkijkje in hoe mensen toen dachten. Daarnaast lijkt mijn tijd in West Afrika een cruisereis vergeleken met toen m'n naamgenote er toen heen ging.

[Karen]

Mary Kingsley is a 30 something late-Victorian woman who inherits money on her parent's death and decides to head off to West Africa. There, never changing out of her petticoats, but without an English escort, she tells a witty tale of her adventures.

[Peter Ellwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slightly flawed but still remarkable book. It consists of the account of an astonishing journey she made, by sea and on foot through the jungle, in 1895; some interesting observations of native beliefs (fetishes), and a few notes on travels elsewhere. The initial sequence on her travels in Gabon was the most interesting for me, albeit a bit verbose, but it’s all well worth reading anyway.

I suppose what I really mean is, what a remarkable woman. Imagine a young Victorian spinster whose primary claim to life theretofore was to care for her ailing mother in London, deciding “I think I fancy trading and exploring in West Africa for a few months”. It would be remarkable enough in the year 2020; in 1895 it must have been cataclysmic.

From the very first chapter she witters on in a matter of fact, humorous way about the still-primitive and challenging places she visits, as though it were the most natural, normal thing in the world for a spinster to do. I lived in Cameroon for a while in the 1980s, and I’m telling you, they were still primitive and challenging one hundred years later. She brings a freshness of vision to everything she sees, but a simply amazing lack of recoil or of condescension towards the strange things she experiences. Against all the odds, she clearly loved everything about W. Africa.

It’s a remarkable vignette of life in those times, and a glimpse of what it must have felt like. As she describes a customs house in French Africa you can almost imagine you are there with her, and her descriptions of the countryside wherever she goes is a truly valuable record of what it was like. Her descriptions of the flora and fauna are often quite poetic. Try this, of the humble mango tree:
“mango trees are only pretty when you are close to them prettiest of all when you are walking through an avenue of them and you can see the richness of their colour; the deep myrtle-green leaves, with the young shoots a dull crimson, and the grey-brown stem and the luscious-looking but turpentiny-tasting fruit, a glory of gold and crimson, like an immense nectarine.

It’s also quite hair-raising in its way. For example, many would baulk at the notion of drifting up Gabon’s river Ogowé (Ogooue) alone even today; but she cheerfully did so one hundred years ago. There she is, sailing calmly into the original White Man’s Grave, Conrad’s actual Heart of Darkness, without a second’s hesitation. Her descriptions of that journey are vivid and evocative, almost worthy of an adventure novel in themselves. Her cheerfulness is always fun too: speaking of a sally into the depths of French-speaking Talagouga (she spoke not a word of French naturally) she strays across her first road in weeks. A genuine road! “The road goes on into the valley, as pleasantly as ever and more so. How pleasant it would be now, if our government along the Coast had the enterprise and public spirit of the French, and made such roads just on the remote chance of stray travellers dropping in on a steamer once in ten years or so and wanting a walk.”

The book does have certain shortcomings. That remorseless ‘captain of the school hockey team’ humour can jar a bit, and it is too long at 700 pages. I imagine too that her instinctive Victorian white person’s attitudes towards Africans will grate amongst more politically correct contemporaries; though the more discerning will note that she does not really seek to patronise; it’s more that her thinking is defined by the age she lived in, just as the PC brigade’s thinking is today.

All the same, it’s a fascinating book, offering a precious and vivid glimpse of what life was like in those distant days. It’s also a fascinating work of feminism in action. There’s not a trace of the shrillness of contemporary feminists (apologies to any who might read this: but my point disappears without the comparison): she’s, as it were, a feminist’s feminist: she simply got in with it, without a whiff of self-absorption or self-publicity: and achieved her most demanding goal. I’d love to have met her.

[Noel Arnold · Rating 4 out of 5]

book #21 of 2023: Travels in West Africa: Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (1897) by Victorian English traveler and writer Mary Kingsley. I didn’t choose this book because she was: white, Western, or a woman: I chose it because it was a historical view of a place I’m interested in by a traveler who is an outsider and would hopefully notice things someone native to the area might find unextraordinary. what I got was a self-educated British woman in full skirts who went alone to West Africa and hired men from various local tribes in her various treks: to travel, collect plant and fish specimens, climb a mountain, and engage in trade — but that last was largely merely to ease the path of her quests among native peoples and their villages. despite her audacity to travel alone to Africa, which must have been shocking to everyone at the time, she was, unsurprisingly, more a woman of her time than of ours. she felt warmly toward Africans, but was overall pretty condescending re: her impressions of their level of civilization: she did note that they were more intelligent than their languages enabled them to express and she claimed that she generally liked them better them “more civilized men” (white men), but then she went on and on about what it would take to “raise them” even close to “white society”. 😳 what was I expecting, though? at least I don’t ever recall her claiming to discover anything. anyway…she had a keen mind and ability to observe which helped her enormously in her experiences and which in turn benefited her reader, whether it was someone 150 years later curious about a particular part of Africa or…a European business person of the time looking to enhance their profits. she was a courageous, intrepid traveler; an anthropologist observing countless cultural traits: dress, marriage, hunting, a special focus on spiritual practices, etc — all through a voice somewhere between Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde, though not reaching either, certainly not the latter. it was hard to tell whether she was trying to wryly entertain the reader because she expected they wouldn’t care about her rather many exquisite and lyrical descriptions of the local geography and flora (I was here for it!): if she felt insecure in compelling an audience and so employed such storytelling techniques or if perhaps many of the writers she admired wrote that way so that was simply how she expressed herself. regardless, I stand by my opinion that my favorite writing style is from 1800-1950: though this book isn’t included among my favorites from that period, at least the writing style was similar, though it took me ~half the book to get into it because it felt ~forced.

[John Geary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very unusual book in the sense that there were parts of it I really loved, and could not get enough of…but then there were parts of it I could really do without. There didn’t seem to be any “middle of the road”
sections of this book - I either loved what I was reading or I hated it.
I loved reading about her journeys on rivers in canoes, or climbing mountains in actual journeys in the interior. But the last nine chapters of the book deal with two subjects: the last four deal with climbing volcanic mountains in Cameroon, which I enjoyed. However, the previous five chapters were all about African fetish (“an inanimate object worshiped for its supposed magical powers or because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit.”) I really could have done without that, it was quite tedious and boring, a slog to get through.
The author is quite a good writer, and taking into consideration that this was written in the late 1890s, she has quite a bit of good tongue-in-cheek humour in her writing. Her descriptions of the beauty of nature are also very good. But some of the subject matter in this book was not all that entertaining for me.
The book also would have been much better if it had provided a few more maps. There is one map showing her travels around Gabon, at the very beginning of the book – but nothing showing her travels around Cameroon, at least not in this particular version of the book; there may be other copies that have more/better maps.
It’s certainly an important book in the genre of classic travel writing of the 19th century; but overall, it does not really encourage me to read other writings on that subject, from that period.
Her courage and toughness is certainly something to be respected; I doubt if many 21st-century travellers would have been as resilient as she was, given some of the trials and hardships she underwent, and kept going, 125 years ago.

[Lara Falkiner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok I have to start this with an acknowledgement that Kingsley was a horribly racist Victorian era woman who, self admittedly saw herself as apart from humanity as a whole. I kept on reminding myself that while on some topics she was remarkably forward thinking, ultimately she was a woman of the 1800s, and judging by todays standards I would want to pull out my hair in conversation with her. However, times have changed for the better and for a woman of unarguable moxie, who might she have been, given self autonomy, education, the opportunity to feel human.
I read an annotated version that had been rearranged by the editor, providing chapters detailing different segments of her journeys and omitting some writing, so I don’t know how it compares to the original.
However, I found the writing style to be very readable for almost 150 years between us, her reflections clearly laid out in matter of fact terms, showing humour, a complete disregard for her own safety, and perhaps key to why I continue to give her the benefit of the doubt: an active and demonstrated ability to set aside her preconceived notions born of her theoretical knowledge in favour of the firsthand experience she was immersed in. Otherwise it would be difficult to come to the conclusion that cannibals are actually quite reasonable people…
Then there is the journey itself which reflects a time and a place I can only dream of. To have this first hand account, albeit filtered through my own value set and worldview, stokes the ember of adventure, of curiosity and discovery. As a child I was heartbroken to learn that ‘adventurer’ was not on the list of job opportunities, reading these stories feels like a gift to that part of myself.

[Ebirdy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the Everyman Library version of this book which was 270 pages and edited by Elspeth Huxley, who wrote the beautiful "Flame Trees of Thika".

This memoir is abridged from her journals and the memoir she wrote in 1897, and it was fascinating. Kingsley was an amazingly brave and intrepid traveler - trekking all over West Africa with only indigenous people as her companions and guides, and doing it in full Victorian dress.

She was the first white woman to ascend Mount Cameroon.

Her writing has some of the negative words and views which were typical of her time, but in other ways she was very much ahead of her time and had many positive views of the indigenous people whom she interacted with. Her opinions when she returned to England were quite controversial because she went to West Africa thinking that the traders were causing the most harm to the indigenous people, and came home believing it was the missionaries and the governments who were.

What I didn't expect in her writing was the humor - she is laugh-out-loud funny but always in that dry, self-deprecating British-humor way. Chapters 10 and 11 were the slowest for me but still readable. The rest was really good. My only complaint is the way it ended. It felt very much like it stopped mid-chapter.

If you can get ahold of a copy of this book (you'll probably have to go online and find it used although my understanding is it's never been out of print since originally published) I highly recommend it.