Explorers' Trials and Tribulations in the Search for the Nile

 

River of the Gods – Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile, by Candice Millard, Doubleday, NY, 2022.

 

River of the Gods is an in-depth investigation into the lives and psyches of explorers Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke.  The author did an astonishing amount of research and artfully employs quotations and citations from hundreds of letters, journals, and official records from the era.  The sheer amount of material available gives evidence to a pre-electronic culture where people wrote things down.

The two protagonists in this epic were men of strong views and towering egos. They connected first in an effort to explore the Horn of Africa. Failures and misunderstandings there festered for years and resurfaced later when the two joined to find the source of the Nile. Departing from Zanzibar with a huge caravan of porters, they headed into the interior of what is now Tanzania. Their safari was rife with obstacles, bad weather, insects, desertions, hostility from indigenous tribes, sickness, and inadequate supplies. Once on the shores of Lake Tanganyika they were determined to prove that it had a northern outlet which was the Nile.  They were unable to make that determination. Exhausted in spirit and body, and out of supplies they began the trek back to the coast.  While Burton lay ill, Speke mounted a trek to a northern lake.  He subsequently spotted Lake Victoria, which he named in honor of his queen, and proclaimed it the source of the Nile.

Returning to England the two bickered openly about the facts. Ultimately Speke was funded for a second expedition to determine the truth. Accompanied by James Grant he did circle Lake Victoria and verified that the Nile exited from it.  Even so, Burton and Speke’s personalities and standing in society continued to clash leading to a planned public debate in England on the issues. However, on the day prior to the encounter, Speke died in a hunting accident.

The value of this book is not so much its recitation of the facts of the explorers’ journeys, which have been well described elsewhere over the years, but in the in depth look at the personalities of the two men – their foibles, passions, strengths, and prejudices.  It is a fascinating study.

I have, however, several quibbles with the book. First the cover contains a photograph of Murchinson Falls on the Nile, a sight that neither Burton nor Speke ever saw.  Why imply that they did? Secondly, the author refers throughout to the lake as Lake Victoria Nyanza without noting that ‘Nyanza’ is a local term for lake. So, Lake Victoria Nyanza is ‘Lake Victoria Lake.’  Finally, she neglected to tell the after-the-fact story that the British colonial government erected a statue of Speke overlooking Owen Falls, where the Nile begins, with a plaque stating that Speke was the first man to ever see that sight. Shortly after independence the new Ugandan government dismantled the monument noting that Ugandans had been seeing the sight for centuries.

My quibbles aside, this is a book worth reading.

 

Abduction in the Serengeti

 

A review of The Lioness by Chris Bohjalian, Doubleday, NY, 2022

 

This novel is a thriller with an ostensibly simple plot. A group of movie stars is kidnapped while on safari in the Serengeti in 1964.  Alternating between flashbacks (mostly boring) to key moments in their lives, the protagonists struggle with their captors against the backdrop of vicious wild animals. Death lurks on all sides – from ruthless Russian captors or leopards, snakes, or hyenas. Plenty of people die.

The Africa setting, that is descriptions of the game reserve park are accurate, but geography is way off – equating an easy drive, for example, from the Serengeti to Albertville, Congo. Oops! that is hundreds of miles distant and there is a huge lake in the way.  The motive for kidnapping slowly leaks out as the novel moves forward. It is implausible, but it does keep the tale going. Afterall this is fiction.

The author inaccurately described a wrecked land rover when one character insists that another roll up the windows, so the dead inside won’t be eaten by scavengers.  Land rovers in the 1960s all had sliding windows, not roll-ups.  Similarly, the author describes a leopard attack that probably could never occur. But again, cut him some slack. It is fiction.

As improbably as the story is, I enjoyed the novel.

Election Saga, Bangui

 

I wrote this piece in December 2020 prompted by what had been going on during the past few weeks in America.  I submitted it to the Foreign Service Journal. It was finally published in the June 2022 edition as a Reflections piece.  

Election Saga, Bangui

     Election day in the Central African Republic in 1993 was busy. I sent all embassy personnel hither and yon as election observers. I too made the rounds of voting precincts in Bangui.

    Voters lined up and waited patiently for their turn. They then marked their ballot and stuffed into the box, always accompanied by a resounding “a voté”  - by a nearby poll watcher. Everything went smoothly.

    After closing the precinct officials and party poll watchers hovered around the counting table to ensure that ballots were correctly tabulated. Then the box was sealed and transported to the Supreme Court for the final official tally. Nonetheless, it quickly became apparent that incumbent President Andre Kolingba was destined to lose.

     Two days later, at mid-morning, I got a phone call at the office from Chief Justice Edouard Frank. “Ambassador,” he said, “They are going to kill me, if I start the count.”

    Whoa! I thought. “Sit tight, I’ll be right over,” I replied.

    There was too much at stake for the nation and for the process to let it collapse at the end.  I told my driver Robert to put on all the flags, and we drove to the Supreme Court. I found Justice Frank in his office. He was clearly shaken by the threat, emanating, he avowed from the presidency; but after calming down he realized his duty.

   With my support he agreed to go forward. So he and I, followed by the other justices, all in their judicial robes, walked across the courtyard to the court chamber. I took a front row seat, and the process of counting began. It proceeded without interference.

   Meanwhile I contacted my German and French colleagues. At least one of us was present for the entire count.  Kolingba came in fourth. (I was later told by a contact in the presidency that our presence in the court room had, indeed, caused a plan to disrupt the proceedings to abort.)

     However, President Kolingba, who had obviously been misled by his entourage as to his popularity, was not yet done.  That afternoon he emptied the prisons, apparently in hope to cause civil unrest so that he could declare martial law and nullify the election.

     A key part of this plan was to release former President Jean Bedel Bokassa who was president from 1966 to 1976, declared himself Emperor Bokassa I and ruled as such until 1979. Kolingba thought that the people might either rise up to support the aging mentally diminished monarch or revolt against him.  Either way, it could result in martial law.

     There were no uprisings, however. The city remained tranquil while thousands of prisoners in their prison-pink shorts headed home. Bokassa’s family moved him quickly into a protected residence, where he rusticated and eventually died.

     To his credit, Kolingba finally conceded. He acknowledged the validity of the results and the election of Ange Patassé as president. One of his final acts was to bestow the Order of Merit of the Central African Republic upon me, my French, German and European Union colleagues.

      Ironically, one of the first acts of President Patassé the next week was to award the four of us the same medal as a token of appreciation for our role in mandating the election. So, we each have two. 

 

Idina Sackville of Kenya's Happy Valley crowd,

 

A review of The Bolter by Frances Osbourne, Alfred Knopf, New York, 2008.

Since I read and review matters Kenyan. Following is a brief take on this book. It is a biography of Idina Sackville (written interestingly enough by her great granddaughter who knew nothing of her infamous ancestor until she (the author) was an adult). Idina was a sybarite who scandalized London and Kenyan society by her licentious behavior. She was married five times and seduced countless men.  She was the focal point of Kenya’s Happy Valley set in the 1920s and 30s and contributed enormously to its sordid reputation of infidelity, promiscuous sex, drugs, and alcohol.

The biography is a long list of Idina’s loves and liaisons, of her fallings-out with her family, her abandonment of her children, her travels, and her search for love and companionship. The recitation was too much for me. It was boring, especially the long descriptions of London society in the pre-and-post WWI era.

The Kenyan part was a bit more interesting on account of the setting and Idina’s efforts to farm in the highlands near Gilgil, but that too all revolved around the woman herself – her loves and entertainments.  This section provides some insight to what life was like for the rich group who settled in Kenya after WWI but evokes little sympathy for them.  It culminated in 1941 when Joss Hay, the Earl of Erroll and Idina’s long divorced 3^rd husband, was murdered just outside of Nairobi.  His death resurrected all the notoriety about the Happy Valley crowd - the infidelities and the intrigues. Idina attended the trial of Delves Broughton who was charged with the murder, but he was acquitted.

In sum Idina’s life was one of searching and, despite the money available to her, of always coming up short. It is a sad tale.  

Coming of Age in Colonial Tanganyika

 

A review of Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah, The New Press, NY, 2021.

 

Pulitzer Prize winning author Abdulrazak Gurnah of Zanzibari extraction sets this novel in Tanganyika in the years just before WWI. Arab merchants and slavers had wandered freely throughout the region for decades, but their predominance was giving way to harsh German and Belgian authority.  The story tracks Yusef, son of a small time Swahili storekeeper who is conveyed to “Uncle Aziz” a successful trader in repayment of a debt. Aziz takes the sensitive boy to his coastal enclave and apprentices him to a storekeeper. Later Aziz, who supervises months-long trading caravans that cross into the Congo seeking gold, ivory and rhino horn takes Yusef along. For hundreds of miles about a hundred porters carry trade goods such and cloth and beads through deserts, bush, and jungle.  Throughout the brutal journey Yusef is coming of age, growing from a boy to a man. 

The tale is well fleshed out with lots of dialogue and ruminations through which the author paints eastern Africa of the epoch.  For the most part it was bleak. Although the coastal area was civilized and comfortable, in the interior Arab/Swahili people are few and far between and always nervous about their status. They live precariously amongst the native tribes, ever denigrating black Africans as heathen savages. Women, especially well-off Arab/Swahili women, are isolated from everyday life and controlled by men. Because of his indentured status, the same can be said of Yusef.

The safari Yusef goes on is troubled by weather, pests, disease, betrayals, deaths, and hostilities. It was, in retrospect, one of the last such undertakings as the coming war and stronger German suzerainty would prohibit further journeys. Yet for his part Yusef is an apt observer and gradually a participant in the life around him. A true innocent at the outset, he manages to escape rape, (which the author leads the reader to believe will happen at any moment). He gradually discovers his own sexual and emotional feelings.  In the end he liberates himself from the legal, traditional, and other strictures of his youth and takes responsibility for his own fate.

The title Paradise is ironic in that bush Africa, to which it refers, was anything but. That being said, Gurnah paints a vivid portrait of a vanished period peopled with believable characters.  The book is an entertaining read and exposition of what once was. 

What do White Kenyans Think?

 

A review of Unsettled – Denial and Belonging Among White Kenyans, by Janet McIntosh, University of California Press, 2016.

This is an intriguing book. Written in dry academic prose as befits the academic study it is, nonetheless, it elucidates provocatively upon its theme. The author interviewed about 150 white Kenyans, some were remnants from colonial times and the rest their descendants, most of whom remain in Kenya and most of whom carry Kenyan citizenship. The idea was to find out what they think about themselves and their roles in the contemporary nation. And what they perceive as the legacy of colonialism that they must bear and deal with.

Author McIntosh wove the results of her interviews into chapters. First, dealing with the specter of being white in a tribally divided black country.  Were whites just another tribe? In some ways yes, but their wealth and legacy of power, still tends to set them apart. Secondly, McIntosh focused on land issues, specifically an ongoing effort by Maasai activists to reclaim white owned land in Lakapia.  White opinion was strong in perceiving that ownership, stewardship and improvements entitled continued white control, although younger respondents recognized traditional claims had merit, they were uncertain how such issues should be resolved. (I was disappointed that this chapter neglected any discussion of the million-acre scheme wherein at independence land was forcibly purchased from whites and transferred to blacks).  A third chapter revolved around the 2006 murder trial of Tom Cholmondeley, a prominent white Kenyan who shot a poacher. The brouhaha aroused against Cholmondeley spilled over into wrath against all white Kenyans, causing many of them to question yet again whether they still had a place in Kenya. A fourth chapter dove into personal friendships and romantic relationships between whites and blacks. Master/servant relationships were dissected, true cross racial friendships analyzed, and it was observed that previously taboo romantic liaisons are gaining wider acceptance, especially among younger respondents. A fifth chapter covered linguistic questions. During the colonial era, whites spoke a simple form of Swahili dubbed KiSettla, that was deemed belittling to black Africans.  Their children speak the Swahili language much better and are immensely proud of that achievement considering that it underlies their commitment to being Kenyan. A final chapter focused on the occult (clearly an interest of the author), its presence in Kenya and how it is perceived across racial divisions.  

In summary, Unsettled is an interesting read for folks who know Kenya and understand – at least intuitively - the plight of former rulers becoming a tolerated minority faced with an unknown future.

What Unknown Lurks in Africa?

 My grandson WIlliam and I exchange literary pieces for Christmas. Following is the story I wrote. 

Mokele-Mbembe

 

Byanga, Central African Republic.  My small plane charter flight got in about 9 this morning. I was met at the air strip by Emanuel, my guide. He had transport ready, a beat-up old Toyota pickup, and off we went into the reserve. We traced a forest track, parked at a gate, then walked for 40 minutes down trails beneath gigantic trees and across a small stream until arriving at Dzanga Sangha Bai, an open area in the jungle that contained salty springs. I was astounded at the animals present, especially elephants. There were at my initial count 36 of various sizes, digging in the springs or lounging in the mud. Little ones cavorted around. Also in the area, which was about three or four football fields in size were cow-sized bongo forest antelopes with big horns and stripped flanks, and a number of smaller deer like creatures. “Blue duikers and reedbucks,” Emanuel said.  He pointed to a huge pig in a far mud pit, “forest hog, very dangerous close up.”  I saw monkeys in the trees opposite and flocks of raucous parrots. Indeed, with elephants rumbling and squealing, sucking, and spraying, plus the bird chatter, the bai was not a silent place. I unlimbered my camera, affixed the long lens and spent several happy hours photographing the various beasts. It was wondrous.  After several hours we retraced our path to the pick-up.

Back in the little town, after a cold beer and a plate of fish and chips while sitting on a small terrace overlooking the half mile expanse of the Sangha River, I explained to Emanuel why I had come to this forgotten corner of the world. I told him I was a photojournalist trying to make my mark. Animal pictures, like the marvelous ones I took earlier at the bai, weren’t enough. I needed something sensational. Therefore, I was on a quest to find and photograph the elusive mokele-mbembe, the last living dinosaur.  Emmanuel laughed. “That beast is only a folk tale, which gets embroidered upon only to amuse tourists like you.”  I scowled. Emmanuel quickly changed his tune. “How do you plan to find this creature?” he asked.

“I need a guide. Someone who knows the forest. I reckon we’ll have to trek nearly a hundred miles into the northern Congo from which the last reports of the mokele originated.”

Emmanuel retorted, “I am not your guy, I just lead visitors to the bai and back, but perhaps I can find a pygmy who can guide you. Let me go look now.”  He took his leave, still chuckling under his breath. Emmanuel returned several hours later with a short nearly naked man in tow. “This is Mbjah,” he introduced the man.

“Bonjour, Mounjou” the pygmy formally stated as we shook hands.  I knew that mounjou means whiteman in Sangho, the language of central Africa.  It turned out that Mbjah could not or would not say my name George. He always called me mounjou.  

Since Mbjah’s French was rudimentary we used Emmanuel as a translator to Sango and a bit of Bayaka in order to explain the quest and to flesh out the deal.  Mbjah was willing to take me on a long trek into the forest. He admitted to knowing the legends of the mokele-mbembe and the part of the forest where it was supposedly found. He said he had never been that far but was willing to go.  He thought the trek would take “many days.”  Emmanuel noted that pygmies could not count so that might mean days or weeks.  Mbjah said we must first go down river before heading off into the forest.

The next day I augmented my supplies from a small shop. I especially bought a half dozen packages of cigarettes as that was part of Mbjah’s fee. Mbjah confirmed that we could live off the land so did not need to carry much food.  Emmanuel arranged a boat; a long canoe called a pirogue with a twenty-five h/p Johnson outboard motor on it.  He saw us off and wished me well.  Emmanuel added somberly, “be very careful in the forest. Mother Nature can be quite vicious.”

The boat ride was pleasant. The breeze from the boat’s speed cut the heat and humidity even as cloud shadows danced on the brown river water.  There were few signs of human presence. After about an hour Mbjah instructed the boatman to steer into a sandy beach below a small bluff.  We clambered out onto the sand just as a half-dozen naked pygmy children rushed to greet us.  “My family,” Mbjah noted.  As the boat pushed back into the river, I realized that I was now truly off the map and out of contact with the modern world.  The never changing rain forest of the Congo Basin loomed ahead.  

Mbjah enlisted a “brother” named Mabuti to carry a pack. The little settlement was primitive. It was hardly a village, just a camp.  Pygmies built temporary shelters with stick frameworks covered by large tropical leaves.  Mbjah later told me that his clan stayed here or there for a half season or so, then moved on.  Mbjah made a quick round of helloes and goodbyes. Before long, we headed into the rain forest.  The two pygmies alternated leading the way, chopping away the undergrowth with machetes as needed.

The first several days were hard but not terrible. We followed paths made by elephants or red buffalo. Mbjah knew all the French names for the forest’s big game. He snatched me quickly once or twice from the trail into the undergrowth when an elephant or two strode by. I was amazed at how quietly such big beasts moved.  Monkeys often chattered at us from above. Once we surprised a gorilla family eating fruits fallen on the ground.  There was quite a ruckus as they fled.  Mbjah and Mabuti laughed uproariously while imitating the gorilla’s chest thumping.

Food was not great. It usually consisted of porridge of unknown provenance with some mushy leaves on top. Additionally, Mabuti parceled out some very tough dried meat to chew on. My innards, plus I suppose bad water, did not handle this well.  I had bouts of diarrhea which I medicated, and for which Mbjah gave me a forest herb remedy. It left me weak.

My boots sucked as I carefully pulled out of the muck. One foot at a time. It was slow going. The swamp seemed never ending. Game trails were finished. We slogged for miles through dark colored water that was about a foot deep. Occasional drier hummocks rose from the muck, but they were never long enough to avoid the wet. The pygmies went barefoot. I kept on my boots. Being wet added a couple of extra pounds to each step. I sweated profusely in the humid heat. Being under the tree canopy we never saw the sun.  We did experience rain. It usually hammered down for an hour or so every day.  It was tiring.  Like the rain forest the swamp was not quiet. Insects, frogs, and birds buzzed, croaked and chirped incessantly. Snakes too swam by.  I was running out of energy and mentally damning myself for having undertaken such a bizarre quest. But there was no going back.  Mokele-mbembe land was just ahead.

We camped one night on a hummock, land that rose about a foot above the swamp. I collapsed under my mosquito net with barely enough energy to pull a tarp over.  In the middle of the night Mbjah shook me awake. “Mounjou, mounjou.” He cried earnestly. “viens, viens” (come).  There was a rustling sound getting louder every second. It sounded almost like a small tractor nearby.  He and Mabuti grabbed what of our stuff they could. Leading me by the hand, we retreated into the swamp.  I shone my headlamp back on our campsite to see it seething with ants. A wave of back bodies formed a sinuous carpet almost a foot thick. Mbjah pantomimed ants ate everything in their path and that would have included us.

At first light our camp was emptied. Nothing was left of the tarp and my mosquito net. Both had been consumed. Only metal gromets remained. We moved on.

About midday, we arrived at an open expanse of water, a lake evidently a mile or so across.   Mbjah said, “lake of Mokele.”    Stunned, I sat on a log and almost cried.  I was there.  The horrors of the trek behind us. Now was the chance to document history. Spot the world’s only living dinosaur. So where would he be? We moved carefully along the marshy shore towards a clump of tall trees.  There the ground was high enough to provide some respite from the swamp. It was also a good vantage point. We set up camp. I took my binoculars and studied the lake and surrounding shore.  There were birds galore and apparently some hippos not so far away, but no mokele-mbembe.  I stayed searching until dusk. Just as I was about to turn away, I noticed a ripple way out in the middle of the lake. Soon what appeared to be a head and a long neck emerged from the water. I snapped a photo as quick as I could. I mentally marked the direction the apparition was moving in.  Then it was quickly too dark to see.

Back at camp I found that the pygmies had speared several fish that were now roasting over the fire. It was the best meal I’d eaten in weeks.  I told them I had seen something swimming and wanted to push around the lakeshore in the morning.

We were up at dawn as usual and moved out. The going was tough. The lake was apparently the center of a basin that sloped down into it. Our usual shallow swamp was traversed by much deeper streams or extensions of the lake.  The pygmies did not swim so we had to detour or find a log to float us across. I feared crocs, hippos and snakes, they feared the water. We made slow progress.  Finally, we neared the part of the lake where I estimated that whatever I saw was headed. Mabuti spotted some high ground, so we paused for the night.  

As usual we were serenaded by the creatures of the night, including Mbjah told me hippos snorting on their feeding rounds.  Once or twice, we heard a loud honk. It sounded like a truck or train horn.  Mbjah and Mabuti talked it over in hushed tones. The two were trembling.  Mbjah indicated he did not recognize the sound. But if it was the mokele-mbembe, it was a great spirit of the forest that should not be disturbed. To do so would be to arouse nature’s wrath.  I was even more encouraged by his reaction, judging that the sight I had seen and now the sound was indeed mokele-mbembe.

The pygmies were delighted to stay in camp the next morning. I took my camera and went hunting.  I moved carefully through the reeds towards where I believed the honk originated. After an hour or two of slow stalking. I heard movement ahead. It seemed to be something big, sloshing through the reeds.  I aimed my camera at the noise. At first, I thought it was an elephant, but no, its bulk loomed bigger than that.  Suddenly a large head on a long neck rose above the swamp. There he was - mokele-mbembe! I snapped away madly while the beast carefully looked me over, then went about its business munching on reeds and grasses.  I inwardly rejoiced. I found it, I saw it, I had proof. My quest succeeded. My name was made!  I had to bite my tongue to keep from letting out a victory whoop.  The great beast moved further away from me into deeper swamp where I was reluctant to go. I took another dozen photos of it retreating.

Back at camp I showed the photos on the camera’s screen to Mbjah and Mabuti.  They marveled at the images but had no concept of what photos were. I said that my quest was finished and that we should move on in the morning. Mbjah said if we kept going east, we would soon meet a great river, which would lead us to towns. I will fall asleep tonight under the stars rejoicing in my victory.   

 

Note from the administrator of Hospital Impfondo to the U.S. Consul in Brazzaville:  The journal ends at this point.  We presume it belonged to George McCally because it was in the backpack with his possessions and passport when he arrived unconscious at our facility. McCally suffered from broken ribs, pelvis, backbone, and consequent internal bleeding. It appeared he had been trampled by a huge beast probably a hippo or elephant. He never regained consciousness and died the night of his arrival.  He was given a Christian burial in the hospital’s cemetery. McCally was brought to us in a pirogue down the Oubangui River by a Baptist pastor who lives in a northern village. The pastor said the man was carried into his village by two pygmies who reported that he had been trampled by an elephant while camping at night deep in the forest.  Although the journal fantasizes about a dinosaur and even purports to have photos of one, no camera was found among McCally’s effects.