Andrew Battell, fortunately, has left behind him a fairly circumstantial record of what he experienced in Kongo and Angola. His narrative bears the stamp of truth, and has stood the test of time. It is unique, moreover, as being the earliest record of travels in the _interior_ of this part of Africa; for, apart from a few letters of Jesuit missionaries, the references to Kongo or Angola printed up to Battell’s time, were either confined to the coast, or they were purely historical or descriptive. Neither F. Pigafetta’s famous _Relatione del Reame di Congo_, “drawn out of the writings and discourses of Duarte Lopez,” and first published at Rome in 1591, nor the almost equally famous _Itinerarium_ of Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, of which an English translation appeared as early as 1598, can be classed among books of travel.[2] Samuel Braun, of Basel, who served as barber-surgeon on board Dutch vessels which traded at Luangu and on the Kongo, 1611-13, never left the coast.[3] Nor did Pieter van der Broeck, who made three voyages to the Kongo between 1607 and 1612 as supercargo of Dutch vessels, penetrate inland.[4] Nay, we are even able to claim on behalf of Battell that he travelled by routes not since trodden by European explorers. Of Andrew Battell’s history we know nothing, except what may be gathered from his “Adventures,” and an occasional reference to him by his friend, neighbour, and editor, the Rev. Samuel Purchas. He seems to have been a native of Leigh, in Essex, at the present day a mere fishing village by the side of its populous upstart neighbour Southend, but formerly a place of considerable importance. As early as the fifteenth century it could boast of its guild of pilots, working in harmony with a similar guild at Deptford Strond, the men of Leigh taking charge of inward bound ships, whilst Deptford provided pilots to the outward bound. Henry VIII incorporated both guilds as the “Fraternity of the Most Glorious and Indivisible Trinity and of St. Clement;” and in the venerable church of St. Clement, at Leigh, and the surrounding churchyard may still be seen monuments erected in honour of contemporaries of Battell who were Brethren of the Trinity House; among whom are Robert Salmon (born 1567, died 1661) and Robert Chester (died 1632). But there is no tombstone in memory of Andrew Battell; and if a memorial tablet was ever dedicated to him, it must have been removed when the church was renovated in 1837. Nor do the registers of the church afford a clue to Battell’s death, for the earliest of these documents only dates back to the year 1684. At the present time no person of the name of Battell lives at Leigh.