EXPEDITIONS
Expeditions primarily began in the 1880s, shortly after the region was taken over by Belgium. For many years, therefore, it was called the Belgium Congo. Beginning from 1909, here is a brief list of over a dozen of them.
AMERICAN EXPEDITION 1909
Naturalist Carl Hagenbeck recounted in his autobiography how two separate individuals - a German named Hans Schomburgh and an English hunter - told him about a huge monster, half elephant, half dragon, which lived in the Congo swamps. Later, another naturalist, Joseph Menges, related to Hagenbeck that some kind of dinosaur, seemingly akin to the brontosaurs, inhabited the swamps. Hagenbeck soon sent an expedition to the Congo to search for the monster, but the effort was quickly aborted due to disease and hostile natives.
Historic Tales of Dragons and Reptilian Monsters
The Egyptians were said to be invaded each year by flying serpents from Arabia that threatened their frankincense trade, while Alexander the Great encountered a great hissing dragon when he invaded India. In 1035, a terrible dragon was killed in the swamps of Hungary, the memory of this event living on through the royalty of the Báthory family and the Báthory seal.
In Kradów, Poland, a dragon was said to terrify the inhabitants, requiring weekly an offering of cattle to appease its appetite lest it devour human flesh. The dragon’s demise, according to Polish folklore, traces to a poor cobbler’s apprentice. Cleverly concealing smoldering sulfur in the skin of a calf, this apprentice caused the fiery death of the dragon. Today, large bones said to belong to this dragon hang from the ceiling of the Wawel Cathedral.