Research, Writing, Wrapping Up

As I become more and more entrenched in my project, few things are explicitly clear to me anymore. One thing has increased in clarity the entire time, however:

Mary Kingsley = Bad Ass.

Proof? Plenty. I've learned so much from Kingsley. For example:

SASS: "he incarcerates my revolver, giving me a feeling of iniquity for having had the thing. I am informed if I pay 15s. for a license I may have it--if I fire French ammunition out of it. This seems a heavy sum, so I ask M. Pichault, our mentor, what I may be allowed to shoot if I pay this? Will it make me free, as it were, of all the local shooting? May I daily shoot governors, heads of departments, and sous officiers?" (107)

STYLE: "you have no right to go about in Africa in things you would be ashamed to be seen in at home" (19)

INDEPENDENCE/SASS: "as for the husband, neither the Royal Geographic Society's list, in their 'Hints to Travellers' nor Messrs. Silver, in their elaborate lists of articles necessary for a traveller in tropical climates make mention of husbands. If they did, by the by, they would say he was to be green, but they don't say a word about one" (167)

There are few intellectual crises that can't be solved by a cup of Earl Grey and bad French dance club music.