BEING THE NARRATIVE OF A TOUR IN EQUATORIAL, SOUTHWESTERN, AND NORTHWESTERN AFRICA; WITH NOTES ON THE HABITS OF THE GORILLA; ON THE EXISTENCE OF UNICORNS AND TAILED MEN; ON THE SLAVE-TRADE; ON THE ORIGIN, CHARACTER, AND CAPABILITIES OF THE NEGRO, AND ON THE FUTURE CIVILIZATION OF WESTERN AFRICA. BY W. WINWOOD READE, FELLOW OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETIES OF LONDON, AND COREESPONDING Reprinted from a copy in the collections of The New York Public Library Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations Landmarks in Anthropology, a series of reprints in cultural anthropology First reprinting, 1967, Johnson Reprint Corporation Printed in the United States of America DEDICATION. TO MESSRS. WILLIAM WALKER, OF THE GABOON; J. P. MACKEY, OF CORISCO ; THOMAS MILLER, OF ST. VINCENT'S ; AUGUSTE RAPET, OF THE CASEMANCHE; CHARLES PRIMET, OF THE GAMBIA; AND TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE EDMUND GABRIEL, OF LOANDA, FROM WHOM I RECEIVED SO MUCII GENEROUS ASSISTANCE AND SO MANY ACTS OF FRIENDSHIP. PREFACE. THE narrative portions of this work have been compiled from letters written home to a friend at monthly intervals. This will account for the familiar and sometimes egotistical tone which I fear that I have not entirely subdued. Certain grave facts which I plucked in Africa I allowed to ripen in my brain, like fruit laid out in the sun. After mature study and reflection, I have ventured to prepare them into theories, and to offer them to the scientific reader. I make, of course, no pretensions to the title of Explorer. If I have any merit, it is that of having been the first young man about town to make a bona fide tour in Western Africa; to travel in that agreeable and salubrious country with no special object, and at his own expense; to flaner in the virgin forest; to flirt with pretty savages, and to smoke his cigar among cannibals. Conservative Club, November, 1863. |