Post Cards of the Belgian Congo and French Equatorial Africa

This small collection includes 65 photograph post cards depicting the Belgian Congo (presently the Democratic Republic of Congo) primarily in the Kivu province and French Equatorial Africa primarily in Chad and the French Congo (presently the Republic of Congo). The cards were collected by Alfred Daly. Twelve of the post cards are a set of "Costermansville... Lac Kivu" cards featuring photos by J. Bouchonville of the city of Costermansville (presently Bukavu) on Lake Kivu. Another set of the post cards were created in Paris as part of the "La Carte Africaine" series, and include captions printed in French on the reverse sides. The captions indicate locations such as Leopoldville, Brazzaville, Bangui, Fort-Archambault and Fort-Lamy (Tchad), Kirdi-Massa (Region de Logone, Tchad), Kindamba, Mayo-Kebbi (Tchad), Abeche (Tchad), Oubangui-Chari, and Region de Daba (Tchad). Two of the post cards are colorized; the rest are black and white.

The majority of the photos are of African people, but there are also landscape views, a paddle boat, animals (elephants, giraffes, etc.), huts in a village, and views of towns such as Costermansville and Bangui on the Ubangi River. A few post cards show people dancing in costumes (including one of the colorized cards). The other colorized post card shows the daughter of the Sultan of Binder ("la petite fille du Sultan de Binder"). One post card shows a marker beside a body of water that reads "Speke Discovered the Source of the Nile 28 July 1862." Some of the photos are attributed to Robert Carmet.