Author: William Holman Bentley

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2018-03-13

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 9780364484784

Excerpt from Pioneering on the Congo, Vol. 1: With a Map and 206 Illustrations From Sketches, Photographs and Materials, Supplied by the Baptist Missionary Society, Several of Their Missionaries and the Government of the Congo Free State A missionary naturally sees things from his own point of view but there should be much in this story of twenty years' work - in such a country and at such a time - which should appeal to those who take interest in matters geographical and ethnological, and in the progress and development of barbarous peoples and wild countries. We found the people practically untouched by any foreign influence; now all is changing and changed, and this alone more than suffices to compel one, who has been closely in contact with the native life, to state the condition in which the country was found and people, and to note how the great changes which have occurred have come about. I have also endeavoured to give, very briefly, the past history of the country during the 400 years since the coast was first visited by white men, so far as we have any reliable information; and I have ventured to gather together the hints as to the remoter history of the country itself, of its interesting peoples, and the formation of the Congo river. In writing this history I have had constantly to regret the frequent recurrence of the first personal pronoun; but it has been unavoidable. I write of what I have seen and known intimately, and it is because of my intimate knowledge that I have had to write. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.