Thomas Baines, Explorer
Thomas Baines of King's Lynn, Explorer and Artist, 182045. By J. P. R.. Wallis. (Cape. 125. 6d.) THOMAS BAINES has been almost completely forgotten, and it i3 not surprising, for he was but a minor figure in the golden age of mid-nineteenth century exploration, the age which opened up darkest Africa and the "dead heart" of Australia; a man of indefatigable activity, but little positive achievement. But it was well worth while collecting and condensing into a modern tive the voluminous records, published and unpublished, of bf$ journeyinp; for he was, in everything but his energy and h.3 artistic talent, just a decent average member of the exploring crowd, and the records of an average man give us a sample- specimen such as we should not find in the records of a Living. stone, a Stanley, or a Burton.
Baines came of seafaring stock, but was apprenticed by lin widowed mother to an "ornamental painter." At the age of twenty-two, either because he had been rejected in love or for some other reason, he decided to travel and set out for Cape Town, where he earned, or tried to earn, his living as a landscape-painter. So far as his career had a motive, apart from the motiveless activity of a "rolling stone," it was to record with pencil and brush the unfamiliar scenes of unknown lands. Literally hun- dreds of his pictures survive, inthe possession of the Royal Geogra- phical Society and in the collections of South Africa and Australia. Many of them were reproduced in the Illustrated London News and in various travel books by Baines himself and others, including Livingstone. He worked with increddi: rapidity, and the pictures, whatever their artistic merits, are com- petent and vivid. Several are reproduced in Mr. Wallis's book, including a most amusing picture of the famous Matabele king. Lobengula, surrounded by prostrate wives.
To return to the life of Thomas Baines. His wanderings began among the trekker Boers of the newly formed or scarcely formed Free State and Transvaal, where he encountered a family who confused Napoleon with Apollyon—a testimonial to the popularity of The Pilgrim's Progress no doubt. Then he secured appoint- ment as official artist to the forces engaged in the Kaffir War of 1850-53 under Sir Harry Smith (whose wife gave her name to Ladysmith). After a brief return to England, he joined an expedition based on Sydney, which explored the northern coast of Australia. This proved a confused and chequered affair and revealed in Baines very fine qualities of head and heart. Return- ing again to England, he was appointed artist-and storekeeper to Livingstone's Zambesi expedition of 1858. On this expedition he suffered badly in health, and was dismissed by Livingstone 0112 variety of charges, including dishonesty. After leaving Living- stone, he made a remarkable journey from Walvis Bay to the Victoria Falls, of which he painted the first authentic picture. Finally, after a third return to England, he became the honest agent of a somewhat fraudulent company prospecting for gold in what was thirty years later to become Rhodesia. Here he en. countered Lobengula, afterwards so tragically involved in Rhodes's exploitation. He died in harness. Nine out of ten of those who know the name of Baines at 31 know it in connexion with Livingstone. We can say no more about the matter here than that, as Mr. Wallis tells the story, Livingstone comes out of it rather badly. Mr. Wallis's book is a lively but closely condensed precis of Baines's personal record. Things are happening to him in everY sentence. This is all to the good, but the book would have beer more illuminating to the general reader, who is, after all, 111 ignorant person, if the author had devoted some pages here ard there to a description of the general background and enviroorneg of African development within which Baines's activities must placed. He does this for the Kaffir war, and similar treatmeg of the other episodes would have been helpful. Such a criticisn raises, of course, the whole problem of the relationship d
biography to history—a large subject. D. C. S0mERval-
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