The Country of the Dwarfs

The fifth classic study of African wildlife, culture, and native tribes as they existed in the mid-1800s, written by the first European explorer to confirm the existence of gorillas and African pygmies. Following on from his My Apingi Kingdom, Stories of the Gorilla Country, Wild Life Under the Equator, and Lost in the Jungle, adventurer Paul du Chaillu describes in vivid detail African life before the advent of European colonization, and the astonishing practices, culture, and environment which existed at that time. This work is particularly valuable as it shows, without prejudice or favor, Africa as it was, as seen by one of the first European explorers to set foot inside the interior of the Dark Continent. This last book of his adventures in Equatorial Africa tells of the second of his two great discoveries: that of the Pygmy people of Africa, previously only mentioned in the work of Herodotus and thought to be mythological. It also relates his astonishing endeavors to reach the Nile. Not only did that expedition fail, but his presence generated enmity among many tribes, who quite falsely believed that he had brought sickness and death to the natives. Shot through the stomach with a poisoned arrow, Du Chaillu barely escaped this expedition alive, and never returned to Africa after it. This is a hand-restored and re-set edition, complete with original illustrations.