Travels in West Africa

Mary Kingsley · 1893 CE – 1895 CE · Earth

Travels in West Africa — Mary Kingsley · 1893 CE – 1895 CE · Earth — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Learn the tropics, in her words, collect fresh-water fishes for the British Museum, and study the religion and law of West African peoples, which she called fetish.

Historical context

In the 1890s France held the Ogowe country as Congo Français, Germany the Cameroons, and Britain the coast around Old Calabar, while Liverpool firms such as Hatton and Cookson kept trading factories along the rivers. Mary Kingsley, a self-taught naturalist of thirty, travelled with the traders’ help and with African canoemen, interpreters and guides, collecting fishes for the British Museum and studying what she called fetish, the religion and law of the peoples she met.

The voyage, step by step

  1. To West Africa

    1893 CE

    In August 1893 Kingsley sails for the West African coast on the steamer Lagos; on this first voyage she reaches Old Calabar, where she will land again in 1895.

  2. The Gabon estuary

    20 May 1895

    On 20 May 1895 Kingsley reaches Gaboon, now Libreville, the capital of Congo Français, and from there pays her way by trading cloth and fish-hooks up the rivers.

  3. Lambaréné

    8 June 1895

    On 8 June 1895 Kingsley settles at the Kangwe mission by Lambaréné, on the Ogowe, where she collects fishes and learns to paddle an Ogowe canoe.

  4. Up the Ogowe

    1895 CE

    After a stay at the Talagouga mission, she takes a canoe and eight Igalwa paddlers past the French post of Njole into the rapids of the Ogowe.

  5. Across to the Rembwe

    1895 CE

    Leaving Kangwe on 22 July 1895, she goes by canoe to Lake Ncovi and on foot through Fang country to the Rembwe River, with four Ajumba men, an Igalwa interpreter and three Fang guides.

  6. Mount Cameroon

    26 September 1895

    On 26 September 1895, six days after leaving Victoria, Kingsley reaches the summit cairn of Mungo Mah Lobeh, Mount Cameroon, alone in fog and a gale.

Outcome

Went up the Ogowe rapids, crossed Fang country from the Ogowe to the Rembwe and reached the summit of Mount Cameroon on 26 September 1895; three of her fishes bear her name, and Travels in West Africa (1897) brought her wide attention.

Mary Kingsley

English traveller, naturalist and writer who went to West Africa in 1893 and 1894–95, collected fishes for the British Museum and studied the religion and law of its peoples.

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Sources

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