Between poles of manifest wit and latent analysis Kingsley constructs in images – "… not an artist's picture, but a photograph, an overladen with detail, colourless version" – a discourse of poetic thought; a phenomenon oft-noted in the texts of Walter Benjamin. Of her method she said: "It is merely that I have the power of bringing out in my fellow-creatures, white or black, their virtues, in a way honourable to them and fortunate for me." Of her purpose she said: "[M]y motive for going to West Africa was study; this study was that of native ideas and practices in religion and law. My reason for taking up this study was a desire to complete a great book my father, George Kingsley, had left at his death unfinished." Of her father she said: "The work that he did seemed to promise a career of great brilliancy and distinction – a promise which, unfortunately, was never entirely fulfilled." In truth George Kingsley produced but a few scattered fragments, not a scrap of which found its way into the great book of Mary Kingsley. It is, rather, in the text of his daughter – a forerunner of Lévi-Strauss and his Tristes Tropiques – that the dream wish of the father is finally accomplished; and family honour sustained. Death After the outbreak of the Second Boer War, Kingsley travelled to Cape Town on the SS Moor in March 1900, and volunteered as a nurse. She was stationed at Simon's Town hospital, where she treated Boer prisoners of war. After contributing her services to the ill for about two months, she developed symptoms of typhoid and died on 3 June 1900. An eyewitness reported: "She rallied for a short time but realised she was going. She asked to be left to die alone, saying she did not wish anyone to see her in her weakness. Animals she said, went away to die alone." In accordance with her wishes, she was buried at sea. "This was, I believe, the only favour and distinction that she ever asked for herself; and it was accorded with every circumstance and honour ... A party of West Yorkshires, with band before them, drew the coffin from the hospital on a gun carriage to the pier … Torpedo Boat No. 29 put to sea and, rounding Cape Point, committed her to the element in which she had chosen to be