All
I Know That Is True Regarding West African Facts, I Owe To The
Traders; The Errors Are My Own.
To Dr. Gunther, of the British Museum, I am deeply grateful for the
kindness and interest he has always
Shown regarding all the
specimens of natural history that I have been able to lay before
him; the majority of which must have had very old tales to tell him.
Yet his courtesy and attention gave me the thing a worker in any
work most wants - the sense that the work was worth doing - and sent
me back to work again with the knowledge that if these things
interested a man like him, it was a more than sufficient reason for
me to go on collecting them. To Mr. W. H. F. Kirby I am much
indebted for his working out my small collection of certain Orders
of insects; and to Mr. Thomas S. Forshaw, for the great help he has
afforded me in revising my notes.
It is impossible for me even to catalogue my debts of gratitude
still outstanding to the West Coast. Chiefly am I indebted to Mr.
C. G. Hudson, whose kindness and influence enabled me to go up the
Ogowe and to see as much of Congo Francais as I have seen, and his
efforts to take care of me were most ably seconded by Mr. Fildes.
The French officials in "Congo Francais" never hindered me, and
always treated me with the greatest kindness. You may say there was
no reason why they should not, for there is nothing in this fine
colony of France that they need be ashamed of any one seeing; but I
find it is customary for travellers to say the French officials
throw obstacles in the way of any one visiting their possessions, so
I merely beg to state this was decidedly not my experience; although
my deplorable ignorance of French prevented me from explaining my
humble intentions to them.
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