Please see the Transcriber’s Notes at the end of this text.
The cover image has been created for this text, and is in the public domain.
THE
LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA
VOL. I.
LONDON
PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO.
NEW-STREET SQUARE
THE IVORY PORTER.
THE
LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA
A PICTURE OF EXPLORATION
BY
RICHARD F. BURTON
Capt. H. M. I. Army: Fellow and Gold Medallist of the Royal Geographical Society
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.
LONDON
LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS
1860
The right of translation is reserved
TO
MY SISTER,
MARIA STISTED,
THESE PAGES ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
[vii]
PREFACE.
I had intended this record of personal adventure toappear immediately after my return to Europe, in May1859. The impaired health, the depression of spirits,and worse still the annoyance of official correspondence,which to me have been the sole results of AfricanExploration, may be admitted as valid reasons for thedelay.
In April, 1860, the Royal Geographical Society ofGreat Britain honoured me by publishing a detailed paper,forming the XXIXth Volume of their Journal, fromwhich the topographical descriptions contained in thefollowing pages have, with their kind permission, beenextracted. I have now attempted to combine withgeography and ethnology, a narrative of occurrencesand an exposition of the more popular and picturesquepoints of view which the subject offers.
When I communicated to my friends the publisherscertain intentions of writing an exclusively “light work,”they protested against the project, stating that thepublic appetite required the addition of stronger meat.In compliance, therefore, with their suggestion, I havedrawn two portraits of the same object, and mingledthe gay with the graver details of travel, so as toproduce an antipathetic cento.
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