§27. Africa. XIV. Travellers and Explorers, 1846–1900. Vol. 17. Later National Literature, Part II. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVII. Later National Literature, Part II.

XIV. Travellers and Explorers, 1846–1900.

§ 27. Africa.

American travellers and explorers extended their researches to the veritable ends of the earth, and their literary product was enormous. Africa came in for examination, too. Paul B. DuChaillu explored in West Africa in 1855–59 and reported the surprising gorilla; and in 1863–65 he reported pygmies, both bringing the reproach of prevarication against him. He was not long in being vindicated. He published Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa (1861), A Journey to Ashango Land (1867), The Country of the Dwarfs (1872), and Stories of the Gorilla Country (1868). Then he turned his attention to the north and gave us The Land of the Midnight Sun (1881), The Viking Age (1889), The Land of the Long Night (1899).

An American newspaper correspondent was sent to seek the lost Livingstone, and Henry M. Stanley tells his remarkable story in How I Found Livingstone (1872). He became the foremost African explorer, and wrote Coomassie and Magdala (1874), Through the Dark Continent (1878), In Darkest Africa (1890), The Congo and the Founding of its Free State (1885). This “free” state turned out to be anything but free and became the centre of a storm of controversy. The Story of the Congo Free State (1905) by H. W. Wack controverts the charges, but those who know refuse to accept it.