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Kingsley she made good use of her opportunities among her old friends and new, in preparing to start afresh. Having received a collector's equipment from the British Museum, she sailed from Liverpool on 23 Dec. 1894 for Old Calabar, touching on the way thither at Sierra Leone, Cape Coast Castle, and Accra. Mary Kingsley stayed nearly two months at Old Calabar, where she was most hospitably entertained by Sir Claude and Lady Macdonald, and made many excursions in the neighbourhood. She then went south to Congo Français and ascended the Ogowé river, passing, at the risk of her life, through the dangerous rapids above N'Ojele; and subsequently made a very adventurous and dangerous journey through a part of the Fan country which had never been explored before, from Lambarene on the Ogowé river to Agonjo on the upper waters of the Rembwe river, passing on her way the beautiful and almost unknown Lake Ncovi. Afterwards she visited the island of Corisco, where she obtained some valuable zoological specimens; and the last, but not the least, feat of this memorable journey was the ascent of Mungo Mah Lobeh, the great Cameroon, a mountain 13,760 feet high. During this expedition she won the affection and respect of natives all down the coast by the interest she took in their welfare and their affairs; and German and French officials, and missionaries, traders, and sea-captains everywhere became her friends and admiring helpers. In order to pay her way (for which her slender resources did not suffice) she had learnt to trade with rubber and oil, and the knowledge thus acquired became of great importance to the West African merchants in this country. She brought home a collection, reported on by Dr. Günther, consisting of insects, shells, and plants, eighteen species of reptiles, and sixty-five species of fishes, of which three were entirely new and were named after her. Careful notes and observations made on the spot were afterwards used as the foundation of her writings and lectures.

She landed again in England on 30 Nov. 1895, and work soon began to pour in upon her. She set herself resolutely to acquire a power of exposition, both as a writer and speaker, and in this endeavour met with great success. During 1896 she was writing 'Travels in West Africa' (1897), which combined a narrative of both her journeys. Her fresh style bubbled over with humour. In February and March she read papers before the Scottish and Liverpool Geographical Societies, magazine articles followed, and on 19 Nov she gave her first lecture at the London School of Medicine for Women on 'African Therapeutics from a Witch Doctor's point of view.' During the next two years she lectured on West Africa all over the country, speaking to various audiences, associations of nurses, pupil-teachers, and working men, as well as to scientific societies, academic gatherings, and to both the Liverpool and the Manchester chambers of commerce. She freely gave her services for charitable purposes. Her great desire was that Englishmen should know the conditions of life and government in their West African colonies, insisting that justice should be done to native and white man alike. One of her last public utterances was at the Imperial Institute on 12 Feb. 1900. Meanwhile she was still writing assiduously; in February 1899 appeared 'West African Studies,' containing some matter already published and essays showing her matured views on several important subjects. A second edition of this book appeared in 1901, with an introduction by Mr. George Macmillan. A small volume, 'The Story of West Africa' (H. Marshall's Empire Series), begun in 1897, came out in 1899; and her last book was a sympathetic memoir of her father prefixed to his 'Notes on Sport and Travel' (January 1900).

Her health suffered under the strain of work and London life, and she longed to get away. The war of 1899 with the Boer republics turned her thoughts to South Africa, whence she hoped she might return to her own west coast. She sailed on 11 March 1900, reaching Cape Town on the 28th. Offering her services to the authorities, she was sent to the Simon's Town Palace Hospital to nurse sick Boer prisoners; but overwork, heroically and ably performed, brought on enteric fever, from which she died on 3 June 1900. By her long-cherished desire she was buried at sea. The coffin was conveyed from Simon's Town harbour on a torpedo boat; the honours of a combined naval and military funeral were accorded her. The feeling expressed at this sudden, and as it appeared to many unnecessary, loss of a valuable life was universal wherever she had been known, at Cape Town, on the West Coast, and in England. Memorials to her memory were immediately set on foot at Cape Town, at Liverpool, where a hospital bearing her name is to be erected; while other friends in England and West Africa hope to carry on her work, which has had an important influence for good on West African affairs, by the establishment of a Mary Kingsley West Africa Society, for inquiry into native custom and law, and for