Travels in West Africa

...de Sousa Coutinho, who did so much for me in Kacongo in 1893 and has remained, I am proud to say, my firm friend ever since. I discuss Lady MacDonald and Miss Mary Slessor in this book, but I only briefly outline the pleasure and help they provided me. Nor have I fully expressed my gratitude for the kindness of Madame Jacot of Lambaréné or Madame Forget of Talagouga.

Then there is a whole list of nuns from the Roman Catholic Missions on the Southwest Coast, who were always cheerful and charming companions. There was also Frau Plehn, whom it was always a pleasure to see in Cameroon and talk with once again about things that seemed so far away then—art, science, and literature. Similarly, Mrs. H. Duggan, also of Cameroon, used to rescue me from a desperate lack of toiletries whenever I arrived in that port. She would lend a sympathetic and intelligent ear to the "terrible sufferings" I had endured, until Cameroon became a place I genuinely looked forward to visiting.

When I was in the Canary Islands in 1892, I must regretfully admit that I used to smile at the conversation of a gentleman from the Gold Coast modern-day Ghana who was there recuperating after a severe fever. His conversation consisted largely of anecdotes about his friends, and nine times out of ten, he would say, "He’s dead now." Sadly, people might smile at my own conversation now for the same reason. Many of my friends mentioned even in this very recent account of the Coast "are dead now." Most of those I came to know in 1893; chief among these is my old friend Captain Boler of Bonny, from whom I first learned how to understand Africans and their way of thinking.

I have great reason to be grateful to the Africans themselves—to educated men and women among them like Charles Owoo, Mbo, Sanga Glass, Jane Harrington and her sister at Gaboon modern-day Gabon, and to the people of the interior. However, I provide more details about my experiences with them later, so I do not need to dwell on them here.

I apologize to the general reader for providing so much detail on matters that really only affect me. I know that the debt all African travelers owe to the white residents in Africa is usually only mentioned briefly. No doubt my journey would seem more impressive if I omitted any mention of the help I received, but—well, there was