Paul B. Du Chaillu

Paul B. Du Chaillu (1831–1903) was a French-American explorer, naturalist and author, probably born in Paris and raised on the coast of Gabon, where his father was a trader. Between 1855 and 1865 he traveled through the interior of equatorial Africa, became the first European to describe the gorilla from observation and to meet the Pygmies, and brought specimens to America; his Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa was doubted at first and later vindicated. He then spent five years in Scandinavia, producing The Land of the Midnight Sun and The Viking Age. He also wrote adventure books for boys and died in St. Petersburg while gathering material on Russia.