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Paul Belloni Du Chaillu (1831 - 1903), was a French-American explorer. His observations in 'Explorations And Adventures In Equatorial Africa' were ridiculed and disputed by some scientists, but were later confirmed by travellers. In 1860 he brought to the United States the first gorilla ever seen. He was the first white man to bring back information about pygmies in the remote interior of Africa.
"I traveled - always on foot, and unaccompanied by other white men - about 8,000 miles. I shot, stuffed, and brought home over 2,000 birds, of which more than 60 are new species, and I killed upwards of 1,000 quadrupeds, of which 200 were stuffed and brought home, with more than 60 hitherto unknown to science. I suffered fifty attacks of the African fever, taking, to cure myself, more than fourteen ounces of quinine. Of famine, long-continued exposures to the heavy tropical rains, and attacks of ferocious ants and venomous flies, it is not worth while to speak."
Exploration And Adventures In Equatorial Africa by Paul B Du Chaillu (1861) includes accounts of the manners and customs of the people, and of the chase of the gorilla, crocodile, leopard, elephant, hippopotamus and other animals.
Lost In The Jungle: Narrated For Young People by Paul B Du Chaillu (1869) supposedly influenced Edgar Rice Burroughs in writing 'Tarzan of the Apes'. Du Chaillu's travels to Equatorial Africa were to an area previously unexplored by Europeans - the region bordering the Equator, in the interior of Western Africa. It was on this journey that he was able to observe the habits of several remarkable species of animals found nowhere else and hitherto unknown.
My Apingi Kingdom: With Life In The Great Sahara by Paul B Du Chaillu (1871). Du Chaillu acts as the King of a strange and mysterious race south of the equator.
Land Of The Long Night by Paul B Du Chaillu (1899) is an account of life in the Arctic regions of Scandinavia aimed at the juvenile audience.
A Journey To Ashango-Land And Further Penetration Into Equatoria by Paul B Du Chaillu (1867). This expedition enabled him to confirm the accounts given by the ancients of a pygmy people inhabiting the African forests. The map accomanying Ashango-land was of unique value but the explorer's photographs and collections were lost when he was forced to flee from the hostility of the natives.
The Country Of The Dwarfs by Paul B Du Chaillu (1871) are wonderful tales of the author's travels in Africa retold for children. Chapter titles include 'How Paul set out for the Country of the Dwarfs and what he took with him', 'Honest Africans' and 'Terrible Storms of Thunder'.
Wild Life Under The Equator: Narrated For Young People by Paul B Du Chaillu (1868) is another first-person account of encounters with wild birds, beasts and native tribes of people. Intended for young people.
Stories Of The Gorilla Country by Paul B Du Chaillu (1868) was his first novel for children.
Adventures In The Great Forest Of Equatorial Africa And The Country Of The Dwarfs by Paul B Du Chaillu (1890)
Land Of The Midnight Sun: Summer And Winter Journeys Through Sweden, Norway, Lapland And Northern Finland by Paul B Du Chaillu (1881) are his impressions of Scandinavia and its inhabitants based on a series of journeys made between 1871 and 1878.
The Viking Age: The Early History, Manners And Customs Of The Ancestors Of The English-Speaking Nations by Paul B Du Chaillu (1890). After Africa, Du Chaillu later turned his focus to researching the prehistory of Scandinavia and after eight and a half years of research, he published The Viking Age, his best known work. Du Chaillu was the first to recognize the importance of the Norse culture to the development of the British Isles during the fifth to eleventh centuries.
Robert Michael Ballantyne (1825 - 1894) was a Scottish juvenile fiction writer. During his life he would write over 80 books and travel all over the world to gain first-hand knowledge of his subject matter.
The Gorilla Hunters: A Tale Of The Wilds Of Africa by R M Ballantyne (1861) was written as part of the controversy that exploded in London in that year concerning the French-American naturalist Paul du Chaillu's claim to be the first white man to shoot a gorilla.
Black Ivory: A Tale Of Adventure Among The Slavers Of East Africa by R M Ballantyne (1873). "I began my tale in the hope that I might produce something to interest the young (perchance, also, the old) in a most momentous case - the total abolition of the African slave-trade. I close it with the prayer that God may make it a tooth in the file which shall eventually cut the chain of slavery, and set the black man free."
Hunting The Lions Of The Land Of The Negro by R M Ballantyne (1877). Free Ebook
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