196 Books: Gabon

 Between Man and Beast by Monte Reel

Gabon is in Africa:

And here's the summary:

In 1856, Paul Du Chaillu ventured into the African jungle in search of a mythic beast, the gorilla. After wild encounters with vicious cannibals, deadly snakes, and tribal kings, Du Chaillu emerged with 20 preserved gorilla skins—two of which were stuffed and brought on tour—and walked smack dab into the biggest scientific debate of the time: Darwin's theory of evolution. Quickly, Du Chaillu's trophies went from objects of wonder to key pieces in an all-out intellectual war. With a wide range of characters, including Abraham Lincoln, Arthur Conan Doyle, P.T Barnum, Thackeray, and of course, Charles Darwin, this is a one of a kind book about a singular moment in history.

The most important part (for my purposes) about this book, and a bit of a bummer, was that most of it was not set in Gabon. I imagined there would be large descriptions of his time in the jungle. Of course, that was in there, but it was more about the man and the scientific debate. 

However, that didn't make it less interesting. The one thing that stands the test of time? People suck. Just overall. You had Du Chaillu, who was killing and stuffing animals right and left for the sake of science, other adventurers and explorers who wanted to undermine Du Chaillu to prop themselves up, and of course the HUGE amount of people who believed that people of color were "less than." This actually came into play as Du Chaillu's heritage was questioned (it turns out he was half African, half French, but he never 'fessed up to it). There was also classism and just a whole bunch of egotistical jerks. Not to mention the religious zealots. Apparently they decided that the day of creation "occurred on October 22 in 4004 B.C." So...is that the creation of man, or just creation in general? Because if it's general, I'm curious what was going on for the 4000 years before that. 

But it's sad, really. This guy decided he was going to explore in the interior of Africa and discovered all this new stuff. So many people didn't want to believe he'd really done it, or that he was exaggerating, and didn't want to accept his incredible findings. Then when he decided to go back and prove it, the natives turned on him (understandably really, he accidentally brought smallpox). I wonder what it would be like to explore an area completely untouched by modern civilization. Terrifying and amazing. Can you tell I'm sorely missing travel and adventure? 

Du Chaillu wrote a book about his exploration, and I almost wish I'd read that one instead. Maybe someday. Until I can go places again, maybe I'll do some of those virtual museum tours.