‘Hic sunt dracones’: science’s turn

Dragons were not found. But this unspoiled piece of Africa appealed to the imagination of adventurers. For scientists too, a whole new world of knowledge and possibilities laid within reach. The first reports about the population and the landscape came to the West in the form of accounts of the journeys of explorers such as Livingstone and H.M. Stanley. Geologists, geographers, cartographers, biologists and ethnologists also set forth in the hope to make name and fame through the exploration of Congo Free State.