Explorer, Anthropologist, Author. Prior to exploring equatorial Africa in the 1890s, Kingsley had never set forth beyond her native England, and had spent the greater part of her life as a dutiful Victorian spinster, keeping house for her father and brother. Her career is all the more remarkable because she was accompanied only by tribal crews on her expeditions, during which she discovered new species of fish, studied cannibals, and became the first European to scale the most treacherous face of 13,730 ft. Mt. Cameroon, among other achievements. Born in London, she was the daughter of Dr. George Kingsley, a globe-trotting physician and amateur anthropologist, and the niece of Charles Kingsley, author of "The Water Babies." Mary had been a bright, adventurous child who preferred experimenting with gunpowder to playing with dolls. Although allowed the use of her father's extensive library, she was denied a formal education, her one grievance against the parent she adored and sought to emulate. She was also encumbered with her mother's domestic responsibilities while still a young girl, as Mrs. Kingsley was chronically ill. Yet Mary remained undaunted, and after her parents' deaths and her brother's departure for China, she set out to pursue her childhood dreams at the age of 30. During the remaining 7 years of her life, Kingsley used her extraordinary energy and aptitude to succeed in the field. Always a keen observer, she mastered the arts of navigation and the traders' lingo, and learned to maneuver a canoe as skillfully as the natives. Between expeditions she wrote and became a sensation on the British lecture circuit, and her books "Travels in West Africa" and "African Studies" excited both the scientific community and the public. Although her political views and defense of "pagan" practices often embroiled her in controversy, her sense of humor and undeniable courage ensured her appeal. Privately, however, Kingsley suffered from unrequited love for her friend Sir Matthew Nathan, and longed to return to Africa for good. She consequently volunteered for nursing duty during the Boer War, and was posted to a typhoid-plagued hospital in Simonstown, South Africa, which had become a death trap for Boer prisoners of war. Kingsley went to work with characteristic efficiency, and within 2 months had "turned a mortuary into a sanitarium," according to the doctor in charge. Kingsley herself later fell victim to the disease, however, and died of heart failure after emergency surgery for perforation of the bowel. Her final wishes were "to die alone like an animal" and to be buried at sea. After her death she was honored with a military funeral, and her remains committed to the waters off Cape point from a torpedo boat.