Mary Kingsley was "self taught" including reading tons of African adventure / "exploration" books, and when her parents died and sh was left a legacy, travelled to West Africa many times -- her trips back wer to care for her borther, and her last trip was no nurse -- not to her area of "expertise"

Writing Out

1. Mary Kingsley

fish & fetish

"this book must be better than it was, for there is less of it"

On returning I publisheda very condensed, much abridged version of my experiences in Lower Guinea; and I thought that I need never explain about myself or Lower Guinea again. This was one of my errors. I have been explaining ever since...

The dangers of West Africa.
The disagreeables of West Africa.
The diseases of West Africa.
The things you must take to West Africa.
The things you find most handy in West Africa.
The worst possible things you can do in West Africa.

only one positive

[what to do with sim of tone to georgina splivin? fun! self! modesty why?!]

a friend hastily sent two newspaper clippings, one entitled “A Week in a Palm-oil Tub,” which was supposed to describe the sort of accommodation, companions, and fauna likely to be met with on a steamer going to West Africa, and on which I was to spend seven to The Graphic contributor’s one; the other from The Daily Telegraph, reviewing a French book of

“Phrases in common use” in Dahomey

“Help, I am drowning.”
"If a man is not a thief?”
“The boat is upset.”
“Get up, you lazy scamps,”
“Why has not this man been buried?”
“It is fetish that has killed him, and he must lie here exposed with nothing on him until only the bones remain,”

bubies of fernando po
fang