Customer Reviews

Travels in West Africa (Everyman's Library (Paper))

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Mary Kingsley's "Travels in West Africa" has become a classic, and deservedly so. Her story is remarkable. In the 1890s, unmarried and no longer having to care for her parents, Kingsley decides she should travel in "the tropics" and sets off for "West Africa" (i.e., the West coast of Central Africa). She travels as a scientist, collecting fish specimens, and finances her travels by trading along the way--but mostly she travels for the love of adventure and to satisfy an appetite for the unknown.

Kingsley's book is a treasure trove of information about Atlantic-coast Central Africa in the late 1800s. But beyond its historic and sociological value, the book is just wonderful. Her descriptions are vivid, her insights interesting, and her understated humor is a joy. Anyone with a love of exploration and a good story would enjoy this book. Unabridged versions are highly recommended.

Readers with a particular interest in Gabon should also see the works of Robert Nassau, an American missionary who was in Gabon when Kingsley traveled there. Evidently they met and discussed all things African at length, though Kingsley makes little mention of him. Nassau wrote "Fetichism in West Africa", "In an Elephant Corral" and "My Ogowe", but doesn't get the credit he deserves. Also of interest is "One Dry Season: In the Footsteps of Mary Kingsley" by Caroline Alexander. Alexander visited Gabon in the 1980s and compared what she saw then to what Kingsley had seen a century earlier.

In 1893 Mary Kingsley, a single Victorian woman, traveled alone to Africa. The sources of her interest in Africa are obscure. Possibly the tales her father brought back to England of his extensive travels lie at the root of her own interest. In any case her account of her travels in west and west-central Africa are a remarkable addition to our knowledge of the region during the early years of the colonial period. Kingsley wrote with a very outward focus. We hear little of her inner feelings, her comfort or lack thereof. Rather, she is consumed with a desire to know the land and its human and natural inhabitants.

We begin to taste the real flavor of Kingsley's experience in Chapter 2 in her account of the island of Fernando Po and its prominent people group, the Bubis. She then voyages down the coast, describing the lonely beauty of the great mangrove swamps that border the Bight of Benin.

Kingsley developed great respect, admiration, and even affection for the traders, black and white, whom she met in her journey. She traveled in their company and relied on them in what would otherwise have been impossible circumstances. Her views of other white colonials were less sanguine. She expressed mixed feelings about white missionaries, acknowledging the uplifting effects of their moral teaching while disdaining their confusion of cultural with spiritual messages.

One of Kingsley's central adventures was her trip from the Ogowe River to the Rembwe River. On this journey, she visited a series of villages each of which was reputed to be more dangerous and depraved than the one before. Her accounts of her lodging in these places are priceless. The difficulties of traveling through swamps and jungles, and across the great rivers of this region, were daunting. Kingsley's accounts of her determination to master the piloting of the native canoes are both funny and insightful. It took a lot for anyone to travel overland, and her perseverance marked her grit, her commitment to finish what she started.

The last third of the book consists of three long chapters on fetish customs. Although she lacks a systematic view of the role of fetishes and other spiritual tokens in the cultures she met, her depiction of their impact on everyday life and on funeral customs is enlightening. She delves into the afterlife beliefs of the peoples she encountered; in many of these cultures today, the beliefs she relates are still expressed in a form of syncretistic Christianity.

This edition of Kingsley's travel accounts is an abridgement of a much longer, multi-volume original that does not seem to be in print today. Since Kingsley herself prepared the abridgement, we can read it with confidence that it expresses both the details as she recorded them and the priority events or images that best characterize her travel experiences.

Gabon, Cameroon, and the areas around them continue today to rank among the wildest, best preserved areas of Africa, both naturally and anthropologically. Whether you visit these regions or not, there is no better introduction to them than these accounts by a Victorian original.

Single and independent, with a small allowance after the death of her parents, Mary Kingsley decides to explore Africa. She sets off to the Congo, with no entourage nor special clothing and with no knowledge of the local lingo, knowing that this area was renowned for cannibals. Considering that Richard Burton set off to find the centre of Africa with an entourage of 600 bearers puts Ms.Kingsley's trip into perspective.
This is not just a wishful fantasy, she has an agenda to research the fetish cults of the natives and collect animal specimens, as well as fulfil the wanderlust that she had bottled up while looking after her parents.
She takes everything in her stride, beating off crocodiles - 'he was only a pushing young creature', wading through fetid swamps, falling into a staked animal trap and attributing her salvation to the benefits of a good thick woollen skirt!
She has a wonderful way with words; that dry, laconic humour that starts one into fits of giggling; the page-long description of 'Hubbards' sent out by well-meaning, misguided women in Europe for the use of the natives is absolutely wonderful.
She has excellent communication skills, getting what she wants from any native by offering him exactly what he wants - tobacco (reminding us of Xabicheh in 'Dead Man') - and if he doesn't want that, then he must need a hairpin to clean out his pipe!
I am awed by the determination, bravery, guts and chutzpah of this young woman; even more awed by her writing skills - which are definitely not in the Victorian mold, would that there were more of her books than the two she wrote (the other is 'West African Studies'), sadly this was not to be, as she died of typhoid in Capetown in 1900.
A book to savour - highly recommended! *****

Travels in West Africa is a witty, quirky, fascinating work. Mary Kingsley's wry sense of humor had me laughing out loud. A self-educated Victorian woman, she traveled alone to West Africa in 1893 to study the natives' religions and customs and collect fish for the British Museum. Unlike most European explorers, she lived with the people, ate their foods, learned their languages. She continued to dress in proper Victorian clothes despite the heat and inconvenience of hiking in long skirts. She was the first white woman most natives had ever seen. MK was one of the first who felt the white man was ruining the balance in Africa and should stop meddling in the natives' lives and customs. It's not surprising the book is still in print 101 years after first being published. This particular edition is very good.

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 parent 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.

This is a wonderful book. Mary Kingley was a typical Victorian woman in many ways, but what makes this book great is the way her character was not typical. She formed a relationship with the British Museum and collected fresh water fish to bring back to them, but the real point of her trip was to see things and feel things she could not experience in her drawing room. Her account of a meeting with a crocodile that nearly capsized her canoe (she merely remarks that the croc was "a pushing young creature") is worth the price of the book all by itself. She traveled with cannibals, climbed Mount Cameroon, and enjoyed herself, referring to any brush with fatality as "a knockabout farce with King Death". Her writing is lovely and straightforward. Watching an African sunset she says, "Providence saw that we had everything but beauty, and so gave us some." The tragedy is that she died at the age of 30, and that there were not many more books like this one.

Mary Kingsley's "Travels in West Africa" has become a classic, and deservedly so. Her story is remarkable. In the 1890's, unmarried and no longer having to care for her parents, Kingsley decides she should travel in "the tropics" and sets off for "West Africa" (i.e., the West coast of Central Africa). She travels as a scientist, collecting fish specimens, and finances her travels by trading along the way--but mostly she travels for the love of adventure and to satisfy an appetite for the unknown.

Kingsley's book is a treasure trove of information about Atlantic-coast Central Africa in the late 1800's. But beyond its historic and sociological value, the book is just wonderful. Her descriptions are vivid, her insights interesting, and her understated humor is a joy. Anyone with a love of exploration and a good story would enjoy this book.

The Everyman edition is an abridged version (edited by Elspeth Huxley, of "The Flame Trees of Thika" fame). Older, unabridged versions are highly recommended.

Readers with a particular interest in Gabon should also see the works of Robert Nassau, an American missionary who was in Gabon when Kingsley traveled there. Evidently they met and discussed all things African at length, though Kingsley makes little mention of him. Nassau wrote "Fetichism in West Africa", "In an Elephant Corral" and "My Ogowe", but doesn't get the credit he deserves. Also of interest is "One Dry Season: In the Footsteps of Mary Kingsley" by Caroline Alexander. Alexander visited Gabon in the 1980's and compared what she saw then to what Kingsley had seen a century earlier.

I am stunned that the Everyman edition is out of print, as I had planned to order a dozen or more as a permanent gift stash for everyone I ever expect to know. This is a take-to-the-desert-island book, incredibly brave, cheerful, hilarious adventures of a proper Victorian lady wading alone through the swamps of west Africa, and if Everyman lets it go out of print, can Shakespeare be far behind? However, happy to know there's an unabridged version, though a bit pricey to hand out to casual acquaintances. Get a grip, Everyman.

Travels In West Africa, Kingsley
Of all the great women travelers such as Gertrude Bell and Freya Stark of Middle Eastern fame and Fanny Bullock Workman and Janet Wuslin of Eastern Asian and Himalayan note I would place Mary Kingsley of African renown greatest of all. I am familiar with the books and works of the others but Kingsley combines all the attributes of all great travelers, whether male or female. Though she derides her own literary style I find it excellent, she writes with a witty and self-deprecating style which I find engaging. After reading this book no one could doubt her courage and imperviousness to hardship and discomfort. She also seems to posses a quite extraordinary personality as she seems to get along well with practically everyone she meets. But first of all I find her intelligence to be first rate. Her five chapters on fetish are of important value to the anthropologist and student of West African culture, and her comment in the appendix on "Foreign Labor" [page 656 in the Dover edition] may be considered brilliant.
It's interesting to compare this work on West Africa to the famous explorer, Richard F. Burton's, "Travels in West Africa" It seems no two people could be more unlike. Burton, though at times brilliant and always interesting and an intellectual of the highest order, is of course extremely opinionated if not outright bigoted. Burton's attempt at humor or wit never comes through like Kingsley's does. Burton has outright contempt for non-Muslim Africans, perhaps justifiably so in the case semi-Christianized mission Africans. But whereas Kingsley also mistrusts the latter, she attempts to understand the pagan African, while Burton never does. While Kingsley's book is always lighthearted, Burton's work seems strangely macabre at times.
I am not disappointed in this Dover Publishers edition I have

Mary Kingsley was a rare and remarkable woman - self-sufficient, brave, droll, friendly and open, with self-deprecating humor and a keen eye. Her writing conveys her strong character traits and makes for excellent reading. Travels in West Africa has a great sense of place; whether it's a coastal town, a slimy lagoon, a remote village or lake, Kingsley captures these places on paper and also renders striking sketches of all the people she encounters. Her writing is fluid and engaging and also has moments of great beauty; she was truly gifted with the pen. Her work is a mix of serious historical, cultural, and natural study, adventure tale, and personal journal.

Dressed always in the typical garb of a Victorian woman (which actually saved her life at one point) she taught herself to navigate a native canoe, collected fish and botanical samples from spots in the remote African interior, observed and labored to understand native ideas regarding fetish and spirits, and generally went about full of wonder and with an open mind. She was able to appreciate people, even the most violent natives, as they were. She also got into quite a few scrapes, but wrote about them later with understatement and tongue-in-cheek humor. In all, a worthwhile and memorable read.