Taming African Elephants?

 

a review of A Training School for Elephants – Retracing a Curious Episode in the European Grab for Africa, by Sophy Roberts, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2025.

         This is an intriguing book. It tracks two efforts to domesticate African elephants.  One was marginally successful and the other a failure. Both had Belgian antecedents.  The first try was commanded by King Leopold who in 1879 ordered domesticated Indian elephants be transported to Africa to be used to capture and tame wild African beasts. The idea was to utilize elephants as pack animals for the transport of goods, especially ivory. Most of the book relates that story – the trials of ocean transport from India to Africa, a difficult landing near Dar es Salaam, the months long trek across the interior of then-Tanganika territory along caravan routes ultimately to Lake Tanganika. The trek was replete with hostilities, leadership squabbles, disease, lack of food and fodder, bad water and challenging terrain.  Author Roberts uses excerpts from diaries, letters, reports and other documentation to describe the effort. The nineteenth century observations are counterbalanced by comments by Roberts as she and two colleagues retraced the old caravan route.  Of course, for them much had changed; vehicles, roads and rail provided better access, but the terrain remained the same. Even so, modern day adventurers could sense the difficulties and frustrations earlier travelers experienced, especially those herding four ungainly elephants. Ultimately, as one might suspect, this was the failed venture. I enjoyed the fact that Roberts took time to sit down with contemporary chiefs and leaders to tap their community’s memories of events a hundred and fifty years old.  

The successful effort to tame African elephants was mounted in the Belgian Congo in the 1920s at a place called Gangala-na-Bodio. There, several dozen elephants were tamed enough to permit riding and hauling.  However, the utility of using animal labor for such tasks was already being overtaken by machines.  Ultimately, without economic rational, the training effort just faded away. 

This book is well researched and written. It brings little known bizarre efforts to light. Readers can’t help but admire the grit and determination of those involved even while recognizing the folly of the undertaking.

Mystery and Murder in Kenya

 

A review of The House at Mbabati by Samantha Ford

                Samantha Ford is a British author who sets many of her books in Africa.  The House at Mbabati is no exception.  The plot revolves around killings that took place years ago and the denials and coverups that ensued. All, however, is carefully revealed via an intrepid journalist. Of course, there is a remarkable twist at the end.  Even so, it is a well-paced story which is an entertaining read.

The Kenya setting is quite okay although some of the European social antics were more appropriate in colonial times than in the eighties where the story is set.  Luke, the African retainer is a bit mythical, but he is needed for the story.  He is, however, the only African in the mix.  The house itself is overblown, but also necessary. Exaggeration adds to the enjoyment.

Being the nitpicker that I am, I found several inconsistencies in descriptions. First was the presence of Maasai warrior cattle keepers alongside the road north from Nairobi to Nyeri and Nanyuki.  Although certainly symbolic of Kenya, that is not their turf.  Secondly, arriving by ship in Mombasa, then taking a ferry to the mainland to catch the train is wrong. True Mombasa is an island, but it is connected to the mainland via causeway over which the railroad runs. No need for a ferry.  Thirdly, the business of the plantation associated with Mbabati was sisal. Yet the area – two hours north of Nanyuki – is not one of Kenya’s sisal growing areas. It is ranch land. Finally, the title, dissecting Mbabati in Swahili: M denotes place, so, the title means house at the location of babati.  I can’t find a definition of babati. That’s okay it can be made up, which it apparently is. I like the fact that the title is redundant. It actually reads The House at at babati.  The two closest Swahili words are mbali which means far away or mbati which is metal roofing.

Nitpicks aside I enjoyed the book.