Affairs of West Africa

Extrait

Photographs marked thus * are reproduced from “Adamawa” by kind permission of Mr. Ernst Vohsen (Dietrich Reimer). The author is indebted (through the kindness of a friend) to Dr. Maclaud, of the French Guinea Administration, for several of the photographs here reproduced. “Mary Kingsley—the heir and sustainer of a great name, one of the ablest of that remarkable band of wandering writers, men and women, who are the eyes and ears of our nascent Empire, who are bringing home to England, that weary Titan, her tasks, her faults, her problems—Mary Kingsley has gone from us.”—Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD. On the personal aspect of Mary Kingsley’s character one would fain dwell at length. Few women, I believe, have inspired all sorts and conditions of men with so intense a respect, so wondering an admiration. Few women are able, as Mary Kingsley was able, to draw forth, by the magic of her earnest personality, the best in a man. She was so unassuming, so unaffected, such a womanly woman in every sense of the word, that it appeared almost incredible she should have grasped the essentialities of West African politics with such comprehensiveness and scientific perception; mastered, as no one had done before—in the sense, at any rate, of being able to impart the knowledge to the world—the intricacies of native custom and native law, or have affronted the physical perils she made so light of. Eminent politicians and administrators, distinguished men of letters, world-renowned scientists, commercial magnates, were regular visitors at her modest residence, and one and all drew from her inexhaustible store. The least of those to whom she extended the privilege of her friendship were always welcome, and never failed to leave her presence without feeling that her words of sympathy and encouragement were a fresh incentive to push onward, never losing hope and fortified against disappointment. The truest, kindest, staunchest friend that ever breathed—such was Mary Kingsley; and we who knew her, and have lost her, know also that something has gone out of our lives which can never be replaced. In a passage of singular beauty, Mrs. Alice Stopford Green thus closes a tribute[1] to the dead friend whose work she herself is doing so much to carry on: “She laid her armour down when she asked to be carried out to the unfathomable Ocean, alone in death as she had been alone in life, going out with her last wish from the bitter strife of men to the immensities where she sought the will of God.”

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