Her apparel was unlikely: long, black, trailing skirts, tight waists, high collars, a small fur cap, lace-up shoes and a parasol. In every respect she was unusual. With no formal schooling, she consumed her father’s considerable London library and nursed her ageing parents, never travelling far, until they died. Then she packed her portmanteau, created some scientific equipment and headed for West Africa. She charmed and spent time with the cannibal Fang tribe up the Ogooue River in what is now Gabon, discovered many new species of insects, plants and a fish and wrote two books that made her famous. She died nursing Boer War prisoners in Simon’s Town in 1900 aged 37. This is her story of climbing the brooding Cameroonian volcano.