“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 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”. ( )

En este segundo viaje, cuyas increíbles peripecias narra con humor, Mary Kingsley remontó en canoa el río Ogowé, en Gabón, hasta el país de los caníbales fang, para lo cual tuvo que atravesar pantanos, a veces a nado, y enfrentarse, sombrilla en mano, al peligro de los cocodrilos. Donado por César Pescador Galindo

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Kingsley-Une-odyssee-africaine/197699

> Voyageuse perspicace et efficace.
—R. Kapuściński

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. ( )

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. ( )