Afric Maps'
UNTIL fairly recently a majority of travellers in the less sophisticated regions of Africa could be said to merit Swift's jibe against some of the culture-sellers of his day: So geographers, in Afric maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er unhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns.
Now, the traveller, out of respect either for himself or his prospec- tive reader (or his publisher's contract), is avid to quote dates,
'times and places as he describes what befell in the land of the anthropophagi. Or perhaps the above-average writer realises that any view of anything African is a highly subjective one, few
people having enough experience and analytical power to possess a wide perspective on this shapeless and exotic region; and so his story must win conviction by the exactitude of its detail.
No less than in Strabo's day Africa represents for us the primitive and inexplicable; its size, shapelessness and poor com- munications leave it only partially exploited. It is a lucky dip with
prizes for all who will venture in. The professional hunter of diamonds, pelts, minerals, anthropological curiosa, black souls, or
mere sensation can find something on which he can train the sights of his rifle, camera or imagination. (Elek, 16s.) roamed around the Chad Territory, south of the Saraha, desiring to photograph wild animals in colour. His party was also willing to shoot if necessary. Bad luck went with them, equipment going astray and a companion being clawed to death by a lion; but rather unimaginative writing does little to make this catalogue of distress memorable.
In this largely male contingent, the one female, Rehna Cloete, in The Nylon Safari (Arthur Barker, 18s.), fails to shine in her account of a luxury hunting trip (cameras mainly) in Tangan- yika. The account is full of that deafeningly self-deprecating whimsy that the American female writer too frequently uses when travelling as an innocent abroad. Ernst Zwilling is another fully professional hunter (guns and cameras) whose roatnings round the Cameroons in Jungle Fever (Souvenir Press, 18s.) bring to light not only pygmy hunters, but pygmy elephants too. He also caught (alive) a series of gorillas and chimpanzees for zoo replenishments, and enjoyed a visit to a fabulously feudal sultan in—of all likely places!—Bubandjiddaland. This gentleman had a collection of alarm clocks, 800 concubines, and an army of negro, chain-mailed cavalry, some of which assets he displayed to his visitor.
It's a relief to escape from the bark of elephant-rifles to the placid charms of Dimbilil by Errol Whittall (Arthur Barker, 18s.), in which the author relates his own story of an African farm in Kenya. His account is straightforward and he seems to represent the best sort of really humane white African, sensible about his job, his fellows, his countryside and its native inhabitants. Almost as placid is the account given in All the Way to Abenab by Frank Haythornthwaite (Faber, 21s.) of his impression on, and reaction to, his parish in South West Africa. With a region as large as England and Wales to administer, the author found time to explore something of the geology and economy of his circuit; the domestic detail will strike sympathetic echoes in every country parsonage over here.
The most individual writings come from the three—South African, American, English—who have gone around their parts of Africa with a clear objective in mind and an avid appetite for living every day and every experience. Rex Tremlett, born of South African pioneer stock, tells persuasively in Road to Ophir (Hutchinson, 16s.) of estate management and gold prospecting in and around Tanganyika and Uganda. He can really communicate what the loneliness feels like, how the urge to discover drives and also compensates for disappointment. He understands a great deal about the African and his point of view; his sense and sensibility are explicit in a very workmanlike and sympathetically written story.
Next Doctors, Drums and Dances (Robert Hale, 18s.) by Andreas Laszlo, an American doctor, whose tour round Angola attractively mingles American know-how, acute medical observa- tion, and appallingly bad diplomacy amongst primitive natives. He went full of curiosity about medicine (both tropical and native) and native rituals, and discovered a lot about leprosy treatment, witch-doctoring and sexual initiation rites. This is a really illuminating study of the corner of Africa most remote from European interest or influence.
Lastly, the best-observed account of all—Russell Warren Howe's Theirs the Darkness (Herbert Jenkins, 16s.)—which tells of his sojourn in Gaboon, where he travelled widely and tried to understand both native and colonist. His view of the Frenchman in Africa is based on acute analysis of people and conditions; he really knows what the settler is there for and what he gets out of it; he gets along smoothly with natives both primitive and Europeanised. He gives an unusual picture of Schweitzer and his 'institution at Laambaraynay, communes with witch-doctors and missionary priests, goes exploring, collects works of native art, and comes away awed and thrilled by the muddle, complexity, beauty and savagery. But he sees with clear eyes, has remarkably few prejudices and remains non-partisan throughout all. This is an admirably sincere and sharply observed study of a very fascinating corner of Africa. . . . To round off this mixed bag comes Portrait of Southern Africa by Hanns Reich (Collins, 25s.) —one hundred photographs paying tribute to native buildings, This collection of 'Afric maps', is encouragingly free from wanton exaggeration and if the authors do not seem to have exercised a proper discretion always (particularly, with most of them, in their dealings with African natives) their experiences add up to a lot of illumination on some of the dark corners of the darkekt of continents. A. V. COTON
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