Mary Henrietta Kingsley

Mary Kingsley led a quiet life until after the deaths of her parents. She then took off for Africa to study African religion and culture. She traveled extensively in western and central Africa, often being the first European to visit an area. She climbed Mount Cameroon and journeyed through Nigeria, Gabon, Angola, and Cameroon—always in the voluminous clothes of the late Victorian era. She contracted typhoid and died while nursing soldiers in South Africa during the Boer War.