To Africa With Love

Book Cover

Win a Copy of This Book by commenting on this post.

Destination: Africa

Book: Crossing the Heart of Africa by Julian Smith (NEW December 2010)

I enjoy hearing stories about the adventurers who busily mapped the globe around the end of the 19th  and the beginning of the 20th centuries. In Crossing the Heart of Africa, Julian Smith tells the story of a brave (or is it brash?) young man who sets out to impress the father of his lady love by walking 4500 miles from the Zambezi River in southwest Africa to Cairo in the north. The Victorian adventurer kept a journal and later published a book about the trip.

So author Julian Smith had plenty of source material although Ewart Grogan is not exactly a household name like the original Richard Burton or Dr. Livingston, despite three biographies that have been published.

Julian Smith weaves a fine tale. I liked his writing style. It was the whining I did not like.

Unfortunately, every book these days has to have an angle, and preferably one where the author either faces danger or does the travel-is-all-about-my-feelings number.  Smith follows the general path of Grogan across Africa, although being a typical rushed inhabitant of the 21st century, he does not have time to walk, so he takes buses, bikes, and boats to follow the trail. Even more unfortunately, he tells us all about his own romance and his uncertainty about being tied down by his imminent marriage.

Transportation in Mozambique, East Africa

The book tells us much about the difference between Victorian society and social networking society as it does about the unflappable and handsome Grogan. Grogan and his love have no doubts that the risks he is taking will win him the prize, and that however long it takes, she will be waiting for him. Smith has nothing but doubts. Should he get married? Should he venture into the Congo?

Grogan shrugs off the most horrible problems–ill with malaria, losing nearly all his equipment to thieves, facing down headhunters, finding a track across lava fields and swamps never before crossed by a European. Smith struggles with the morality of giving coins to poor children and worries about whether the bureaucrats are going to return his passport. Grogan steadfastly refuses to drop even a postcard to his intended when he’s near civilization. Smith frets over not making daily phone calls or sending e-mails.

Ah, yes, in Victorian England, a man was expected to take on physical, even mortal, challenges and keep a stiff upper lip about it all. In the 21st century, a man is expected to soften that lip and talk about his feelings.  Here are two passages that show the contrast:

Grogan’s arm was a sleeve of pain from wrist to shoulder.  Even if he could have raised a rifle, he found the last box of shells were corroded and worthless.  The party was reduced to eating raw hippo meat and sucking mud puddles for moisture. The diet started to turn Grogan’s hands black.

And here’s a challenge Smith faces:

An old couple climbs aboard and starts playing tease-the-mzungu[white man]. They point and ask me questions and laugh when I don’t understand.  Eery culture has assholes.  I’m too drained to care. Cyclic pressure clenches my guts, even though I haven’t eaten anything since lunch….Bumping along in a bus with a bad case of Montezuma’s revenge is nowhere near as bad as tramping through a monsoon with a potentially fatal fever.

Right. It’s not.

If there were two paths to follow, the Victorian adventurer would plunge into the abyss–follow the un-marked trail. Our role models today train us that it is better to think of a way to avoid danger than to throw oneself into it.

Uganda, The White Nile

In Victorian days, love meant total devotion, not friends with privileges, and a statement of love meant you were about to devote your life to that person, not try to find excuses to avoid marriage.

Smith is a fine writer, but frequently I wished I could find a way to cut out the poor-me pages  and stick with the story of the single-minded adventurer, Grogan. Smith tells that story very well. I particularly like some of his offbeat research, like this about travel:

“To travel” originally meant to “suffer.”  A thousand years ago, life was dangerous, but leaving home was sorse.  The word itself comes from the Old French travailler, meaning to toil, as in “travail”.  It’s rooted in the Latin tripalium, a torture device made of three poles tied together, to which victims would be attached and lit on fire.

So now you now why we are so hot to travel!!

Despite my mixed feelings, I believe this is a good book for a traveler’s library.  Smith provides plenty of geopolitical background and historical context along with stark descriptions of Africa today. And if you love the Great Age of Adventure, you’ll love this book.

The two Africa pictures are from the author’s web site, and if you click on them you can go to the site and see more of his pictures from the journey across Africa.

Some lucky person today is going to win a copy of this book, which was given to me by the publisher for review. Just leave a comment below by January 17 at 6:00 a.m., and tell me if you have been to Africa or if you like to read about Africa or if you went to Africa what you would like to see. (see all the fine print about contests here.)

You might also like:

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

About Vera Marie Badertscher

A freelance writer who loves to travel. When she is not traveling she is reading about travel. When she is not reading or traveling, she is sharing with the readers of A Traveler's Library, or recreating her family's past at Ancestors In Aprons . She has written for Reel Life With Jane, Life is a Trip and other websites. Also co-author of a biography, Quincy Tahoma, The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist. Contact Vera Marie by e-mail.

9 thoughts on “To Africa With Love

  1. Aaahh, the most treasured and mysterious of all the continents. My greatest travel experience has been to spend a year travelling Africa from top to bottom. It is much more appreciated by understanding its history, its culture and the effects of European settlement.

    1. Mark–you actually did that? I’m impressed. I’m still struggling to remember the names of African countries and where they are on the continent. I’m sorry to say it is still the “dark” continent to me, in that I’m in the dark about most of it.

  2. I visited Africa last year for the first time. What an Amazing country. I would love to read this book to revisit some of the places, and culture that I experienced.

    rhondastruthers atyahoo.ca

  3. Interesting in the differences between the times. Here in Idaho as I hike to old mining camps and ghost towns, I am constantly being confronted with the old and the new. It used to be a day’s travel from the old family homestead to Boise. Now it is a leisurely minutes long drive. Thanks for sharing! -r

  4. This would indeed be a book which would add to a traveler’s library! I’m so fascinated to learn more about Grogan- did you say there were three other biographies about his life? I would certainly love to get my hands on one of those. Maybe I missed the titles in this write up- I will go back and read over the piece.

    I LOVE LOVE LOVE YOUR BLOG and am soooo happy to be back!!!!! 🙂 I know I said that already, but it bears repeating 🙂

    1. Connie: Maybe you’ll get lucky and win the book! I did say there were three other biographies, but I did not list them. You’ll have to look in the back of the book to find the ones the author recommends.

Comments are closed.