Africa in the days of exploration
Roland Anthony Oliver (Editor), Caroline Oliver (Editor)
The sun of a thousand years ago shone on Ghana's cosmopolitan splendor, on the great libraries of Timbuktu and Jenne, on a burgeoning art of sculpture and science of mining, on rituals of kingship reaching back to a time long out of memory. The caravan roads of th Sahara led merchants, scholars, adventurers, and noblemen into the colourful yet shadowy interior of Africa. The original source materials collected in AFRICA IN THE DAYS OF EXPLORATION embody the responses of these travelers to their encounter with a continent unknown, unexplored, and unchanged by outside influences. Through their fascinating anecdotes of African courts and countryside, their narratives of discovery, their observation of manners and morals, these adventures reveal themselves as well: their courage and curiosity, their occasional shock and censoriousness, their humor and discomfort. Interspersed among these descriptions is a generous sampling from the extraordinary oral tradition, which reveals Africa in all the unexpected diversity which met the eyes of its first explorers
Print Book, English, 1965
Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1965