This work is a narrative of Paul Belloni Du Chaillu's trip to Western Africa covering the span between 1863 and 1866. Du Chaillu (1831-1903) was a French-American traveler, zoologist, and anthropologist. He became famous in the 1860s as the first modern European outsider to confirm the existence of gorillas and later the Pygmy people of central Africa. Du Chaillu has called them "dwarfs" because of their unusually short height. After his expedition from 1856-1859, a subsequent trip, from 1863 to 1865, allowed him to verify the accounts given by the ancients of Pygmy people inhabiting the African forests.

The book contains accounts of all his adventures and discoveries about the natives. He writes about everything from his journey to the country of "dwarfs" to his departure for England. Records of both expeditions were published, titled Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa, with Accounts of the Manners and Customs of the People, and of the Chace of the Gorilla, Crocodile, and other Animals; and A Journey to Ashango-land, and further penetration into Equatorial Africa. The Country of the Dwarfs was a later chronicle published in 1872.