Frank T. Kryza

History is brought to life in this little gem of non-fiction about British and Scottish explorers of the early 19th century. It follows the history of attempts to locate Timbuktu and efforts to map the route of the Niger river. Goals included putting an end to slave trading and establishing new commerce. The book could also have been entitled “1001 Ways to Die a Painful Death.” Turns out, the “best” routes to get to Timbuktu were traveling through the up-to-150-degree heat and vast rocky expanse of the Sahara Desert or crossing swamps and dense forests with hordes of disease-carrying mosquitos from the coast. Death could (and did) come from numerous foul means: dysentery, malaria, dehydration, marauding bandits, territorial tribes, fanatic Islamists, and a variety of potentially lethal fevers.

The first several chapters describe previous journeys into the African interior, setting the stage for the rivalry to come, including a couple in which:

“England’s best and brightest had been wiped out in both of the expeditions (65 percent of the British contingent of 117 men died in Africa, while many of the rest were terminally ill when they landed in England).”

The middle chapters arrive at the focus of the book, primarily about two men striving to become the first to reach Timbuktu, and claim not only the prize of 10,000 francs offered by the French Geographical Society, but the accolades and prestige which would inevitably follow such an achievement:

“Until that August day in 1826 when the first white man in three centuries is known to have walked through the gates of Timbuktu, some dozen European explorers tried to find the city. For two of these, Captain Hugh Clapperton and Major Alexander Gordon Laing, winning this prize became an intensely personal competition, crossing that thin line that separates a passionate but realizable dream from an irrational and dangerous obsession.”

These chapters are filled with striking descriptions and colorful, larger-than-life people. Not simply conveying a historical record, the author inserts vivid narrative that conjures an image of place:

“Night fell quickly in the Tripolitanian desert. The sky overhead became rusty; the setting sun dimmed. As the light failed, the sky passed from copper to bronze but remained metallic as the sun’s embers were overtaken by the moon’s milky shimmer.”

This book is filled with adventure, courage, intrigue, politics, betrayal, and memorable people. The author is adept at conveying the personal characteristics of the individuals, both the admirable and the unpleasant. There’s even a love story embedded in the pages, which adds poignancy and human impact to those left behind.

The final few chapters recount the aftermath. These chapters, while necessary, were not quite as riveting as those in the heart of the book. Recommended to readers interested in exploration, African/British history, or true-life adventures of a bygone era.… (altro)

Fantastically good read, although not as expected. The race to "claim" Timbuktu by White Europeans. Early 1800's Each step is retraced in agonizing detail. Sandstorms, bad food, worse water Minute descriptions of drinking water that had had marinating camels in it(not that it would have mattered if the camels were alive or dead). In parallel with each explorers footstep, we are told of the political ministrations Great Britain versus the French versus the United States (the war of 1812 is less that 2 decades old) versus various African and Arab leaders that come and go and change sides with an ease that seems incredulous . Enjoyable and educational read although it drags a bit during the political shenanigans.… (altro)

This is a story of European, specifically British, exploration of the African interior in the late 18th and early 19th century. At one point the book shows a 1829 map of Africa, and it was striking how much white space was on it. The Moon was better mapped--because you could study the Moon with a telescope--trying to get to the interior of Africa if you were a European was a different story. (The slave trade wasn’t conducted by Europeans in the African interior but by Africans themselves. Europeans primarily only hugged the coasts of Sub-Saharan Africa until late in the 19th century.) The Race for Timbuktu is a story of exploration and cultures colliding worthy of Star Trek--only without the Prime Directive and not just the Red Shirts drop like flies.

I thought the book did well on several levels. The explorers themselves come across as distinct personalities. Kryza quotes one historian of African exploration in the 1960s as saying that: “It remains difficult, in the checkered history of geographical discovery, to find a more odious man than Dixon Denham.” Having read Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost, I would have thought it was hard to beat Henry Morton Stanley on that score, but I think Denham as portrayed by Kryza at least comes close. Other explorers such as Mongo Park, Lyons, Clapperton and Laing were more sympathetic, but just as interesting. I was also fascinated by the delineation of the connections between the loss of the American colonies, the push to end the slave trade, and how it drove British expeditions to find the lost city of Timbuktu and trace the course of the Niger River. The author does a great job in conveying what a barrier the Sahara Desert on one side and the tropical diseases of the Congo River basin on the other side presented and how they isolated Timbuktu.

Timbuktu, in what is today Mali is on the banks of the Niger and the southern border of the Sahara was a legendary city where “camel met canoe.” It was “likely founded around 1100” and at one point had a population reaching 100,000, was in its heyday fabulously wealthy, and had boasted an important center of Islamic scholarship in Medieval times. If I had one disappointment, it is we actually don’t spend much time or space on Timbuktu itself--this is a book about the journey, not the destination. Kryza claims he is “no scholar, and this is not a scholarly book” but he does include a bibliography and extensive notes on each chapter pointing to his sources. The book was entertaining, but felt solid in its facts.… (altro)