Wanderings in West Africa from Liverpool to Fernando Po

Abstract

Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) was a British explorer, writer and ethnologist best known for his travels in Asia and Africa in the nineteenth century. This is his account, originally published in 1863, of his mission to investigate mortality in West Africa. In Volume 2 he continues to recount his explorations, from Cape Palmas through to Cape Coast, the Gold Coast, Accra, Lagos and finally Fernando Po. Through his vivid and sometimes grim recollections, Burton reveals West Africa's culture, traditions, and living and working environments, showing how slaves were exploited in the gold trade, dwellings were overcrowded and unclean, and poverty and starvation were rife, in the midst of enduring inequality between Europeans and native Africans. Providing a broad historical, political and cultural background to his findings, Burton lends a unique insight into nineteenth-century Africa, which remains of great relevance to anthropologists, historians and geographers today.