Customer Reviews

The Race for Timbuktu: In Search of Africa's City of Gold

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Race For Timbuktu is a fun and interesting read. It does a good job of covering the voyages of Alexander Laing and those who proceeded him. The writing is generally good and the story well told.

In short, Timbuktu was a legendary city of gold and wealth in the middle of Africa. A sort of Shangri-La that really existed, even if not in the wealth imagined. Given the importance of Africa to the European powers at the start of the 19th century, France and England raced to find the fabled city and the source of the Niger River. The book focuses on England's explorers such as Denham, Chapperton and Oudney. Followed by a solid biography of Alexander Laing, who eventually discovered Timbuktu. In the process a good glimpse of European affairs in the Sahara is provided.

So why only three stars? First this book needs maps-- desperately. I am amazed how many books I have read lately lack them. How hard is it for a publisher to get a map, draw the routes taken by multiple explorers on them and publish them in the book? Somehow it seems obvious and yet where are they? Second some pictures might be nice so one can see, or glimpse the regions described. Third, the author often repeats himself. How many times do we need to know Emma Warrington took unescorted walks with the son of the French Ambassador?

Fourth and most important, the author does little to provide African context for the events. Cities, empires, and rulers appear in the narrative, but little is said about them. This especially hurts when a people, the Taureg tribe, appear over and over with very little context. I recommend reading this book with one's internet link to Wikipedia or Encylcopedia Britannica open to answer obvious questions.

One last little thing, on P. 149 the author refers to Herodotus documenting a Roman garrison. Herodotus pre-dates roman times by a few centuries and did not write on Rome but on Greece and Persia. He also places a city in the Sudan which is clearly in Nigeria. Other mistakes may be present.

These expeditions make Lewis and Clark's look like a walk in the park. Where did these explorers get their grit, stamina, inspiration? ... especially those who had an idea of the hardships ahead. Thirsty, malnourished and wounded, they walk distances in 110 degrees that have killed their camels only to spend days digging a well that may or may not yield water. If you hit water, you fight with your entire caravan (man and beast) to have a crack at the sludge.

Kryza is at his best when he describes, be it a person, a relationship, dynamic or a place. His descriptions of Warrington, the Laing-Emma romance, Clapperton and Denham add dimension to the tale as do the discussions of the strange diplomacy in this Tripoli outpost.

Intriguing pictures are placed very nicely with the text they relate to. Kryza loves his material, and he gets us to love it too.

Whether you try the desert route or the Niger, the environment and the unpredictable people take toll on life itself. Fortunately, Kryza restrains description here so that this is pallatable for a general audience. While we might flinch from the page, we can read on.

I did wish for an earlier map than p. 88, and one that encompassed all routes described. Also, I didn't check the table of contents, so I wasn't aware what the race was. I kind of thought it was something that would emerge with Clapperton and Denham. The race actually begins half way through the book. The descriptions of the earlier expeditions are merely prologue. Perhaps a different title is needed, since the book is much wider than the "race".

I like having an afterward. (I've put down many books with long forwards, probably because I wasn't steeped enough in the story to appreciate the author's comments.) I also like the narrative chapter notes.

If you enjoyed Rice's Sir Richard Burton, you will enjoy this book. It a fun read for a airplane ride. Kryza weaves an excellent tale in the search for the mythical city. You feel the stress and challenges of the early 19th century African explorers and marvel that the human body could accomplish the feat of these individuals under those circumstance. It is worth the price because it takes you back in time to a period where individual performance is truly measured.

This is the story of man's perserverance beyond the borders of sanity. Though the main story is about Laing and Clapperton, it is the story of everyman who ever wondered what was on the other side of the mountain; and also to find a fabled city of gold such as El Dorado, Shangri-La or the fountain of youth.

The book itself is written in a straight forward manner and in some ways is more travelogue than historical narrative. When at his best, Kryza gives us the story behind the story and when available from the travellers own journals, their own reasons for going into 'the white mans grave yard'.

All of these 'African Travellers' were men of single mind (if not slight insanity) to find either the fabled gold city of Timbuktoo or the mouth of the Niger River. Now the last may seem easy or ridiculous (since they already were busy on this part of the river) except that the river had so many names for different parts. Europeans only knew the Niger by this name on the upper part that could be reached overland from the Gambian coast of west africa. The bottom of the river was known as the Oil River (because of what floated on top of the river naturally), but no one had followed it's full length. Mostly because of rapids and hostile tribes.

These men who walked or rode camels across some of the most desolate land in the world, never seemed to understand how the harsh climate had molded the men who lived in it. At some times they were past the level of naivete that you would expect from grown men. They complain in their journals about sand and desert and lack of water, but what were they expecting to find. A crossing of such hostile land couldn't be a walk in the park since there were no parks to walk in.

In truth none of these men was a true explorer, in the sense of Stanley or Lewis/Clark, in that they all hoped for acclaim and glory as their reward. The reward was what they hoped for first, and exploring was only a way to get there. But needless to say these were brave, if foolish men.

Kryza does a great job in keeping the action up and keeping us interested in who was doing what, and who got to where first, and who was trying to prevent some one else from getting there first and why.

At the beginning of the 19th Century, says Frank Kryza, Europeans knew little about the interior of Africa. "It was easier to map the surface of the Moon with a telescope", he notes. Africa's reputation as the "Dark Continent" arose from that ignorance. Illumination was long in coming and a costly endeavour. Kryza, although focussing on A. Gordon Laing's expedition to find Timbuktu, also covers the efforts of his British competitors. The focus point was the fabled city of Timbuktu. Known from antiquity, Timbuktu was considered the key to knowledge of the course of the Niger River. Further exploration and trade benefits would accrue to the European nation that could establish facilities there. Kryza's lively account of the competition to reach the city is an informative and almost thrilling read.

The Niger was nearly as mysterious a river as the Nile. In the early 1820s, the source of the Nile remained unknown, and it was believed by some that it might be the Niger. Those who had seen the Niger flowing eastward across Africa could readily accept that. Laing didn't concur with that suggestion, but it would take effort to learn the truth. The rewards for success were great and Laing wasn't alone in his drive to reach the isolated city. The loss of earlier explorers such as Mungo Park didn't discourage other adventurers from queueing for the prize. Two primary routes lay open to the seekers - wending eastward from the Atlantic, or make the Sahara crossing from Tripoli. The first offered fevers, the second dehydration and death from thirst. Laing chose the Sahara route.

That choice meant escorts would be needed for protection in the crossing. The Sahara may be harsh and intimidating to outsiders, but it's the Tuareg's backyard. All travellers there risked banditry or murder. The bones of the unfortunate littered the trail south, so Laing's caravan followed an indirect route, doubling the length of the trek. The length of Laing's journey allows Kryza to insert a great deal of parallel information. Laing was not alone in his quest to find Timbuktu and learn where the Niger emerged. Hugh Clapperton, with one journey to his credit, intended to upstage Laing in reaching the "Golden City". At one point he even passed some rather condescending advice to Laing, perhaps misjudging the other's perception. Where Laing's journey was over the arid desert, Clapperton followed a jungle trail [when there was one] with its attendant insects and fevers. Kryza keeps the two stories moving along with animation, and if you don't know the history, he keeps the end of the contest well hidden until its culmination. Rarely has the British ideal of "muddle through" been more vividly displayed.

Kryza keeps a number of interesting sub-themes active in his account. Laing's mysterious marriage to the daughter of the British Consul in Tripoli is regularly referred to. Its importance is highlighted by the burgeoning competition between England and France in expanding colonial efforts in Africa. Indeed, Laing's own travel journals become the centre of a post-expedition conspiracy. In all, between the issues of national aspirations, international intrigue, personal relationships and individual heroism, Kryza has produced a capitivating read on a topic of major interest. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Early 19th century adventurers and fortune hinters were enthralled by the story of a lost city which no European had seen, which held riches galore. The wide-ranging and popular legend would foster rival attempts to reach this mysterious place: attempts chronicled in fast-paced adventure in THE RACE FOR TIMBUKTU: IN SEARCH OF AFRICA'S CITY OF GOLD. Europeans eager to exploit the resources of Africa's mysterious lands were fascinated by the legend of Timbuktu, and in 1924 the French Geographical Society offered a cash prize for the first expedition from any nation to return from Timbuktu. THE RACE FOR TIMBUKTU narrows the focus to two men whose goals fostered a heated competition to win.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

It is refreshing to read about an African explorer other than Livingston, Stanley, Speke and Burton or places in Africa other than the Congo, East Africa and Egypt. Thank you Mr. Kryza for daring to write about Alexander Laing and the little known, but important, story about that famous city of Timbuktu. The book is a great read. Thoroughly enjoyable!

This is a tale of hardships, courage, greed, betrayal, stubbornness and determination that reveals much about the men that searched for Timbuktu and the mouth of the Niger River at the beginning of the age of European exploration in central sub-Saharan Africa.

The men who undertook the dangerous journeys came from a diverse range of backgrounds but they all shared some personality traits. Determination to fulfil their objectives and courage in the face of extreme hardships are the common threads that linked the major figures even when they were in contest with each other.

The names of most of these explorers are unfamiliar to the average reader but their adventures into Africa and their successes, in accomplishing the objectives set for them by the Foreign Offices and Societies who funded them, shaped the colonial and post-colonial world of Africa.

The writing is not the best of this genre but the material allows the reader to overlook convoluted sentences and the occasional poorly edited paragraphs and some questionable statements of facts. The men who were participants, willing and unwilling, in the early years of primarily British exploration of central and west Africa are drawn from the pages of journals, books and letters of the actors. It is interesting, and enlightening, to read of the complexities of the political dynamics of the region. The rulers and advisers of the regions into which these explorers went were well informed about affairs as far removed from them as British activities in India. Much of what was lost by the over whelming forces of colonialism is glimpsed in the descriptions of the people of the regions by the explorers.

It is in the end an account that helps the reader to understand the manner in which Africa was opened up to the rest of the world regardless of the desires and needs of its inhabitants. The overwhelming changes that would come after Laing and his contemporaries had mapped the area are for another book. These men were products of their time and must be seen as such. Kryza does a good job at doing just that. Their courage and determination were beyond question. Laing, Clapperton, Denham, among others, may have faded from public memory but they helped change Africa forever.

The name of the fabled city still echoes in our emphatic phrases; we might say, "He chased all the way from here to Timbuktu." Timbuktu is somewhere exotic, perhaps, and of course somewhere distant, but most people don't know much more about it than that. Oddly, that's the way Timbuktu remained within the knowledge of Europe for centuries, and then concerted efforts made it a real place subject to exploration almost two hundred years ago, whereupon it faded into fable again. In _The Race for Timbuktu: In Search of Africa's City of Gold_ (Ecco), Frank T. Kryza has told of that middle section, the role that Timbuktu played in the European exploration of Africa. At the time in the early nineteenth century when explorers were making efforts to get to the ancient city, and most of them were dying of the attempts, their stories were a public sensation, and Kryza's exciting account of heroism, betrayal, and agonizing months on the trail brings some of the sensation to modern readers.

Timbuktu was known to have been a fabulously wealthy city, and as such was a prime target for explorers. It had not been visited by Europeans since the Middle Ages. In the early nineteenth century, the urge to be the first modern explorer to reach it was manifest in many young men, most of whom died in the attempt. Alexander Gordon Laing, a company commander in the Royal Africa Corps, was authorized by the Colonial Office to begin a Timbuktu expedition in 1825. He took advice to start from Tripoli, far to the north and requiring a crooked route through the Sahara, but such a route would have minimized conflict with bandits or political enemies. At Tripoli, Laing found the British consul, Hanmer Warrington, a forceful, blustering John Bull who was eternally furious with anyone who crossed him. While preparing to set off, Laing fell in love with Warrington's daughter Emma, and married her four days before leaving for Timbuktu.

Laing faced many deprivations on the trail and midday temperatures of 120 degrees, when water was scarce and fetid. Locusts, regarded as a disaster for agriculture, were a blessing in the Sahara, where they could be broiled or fried. Laing was eventually attacked by the sheik who was his guide and the bandits in the sheik's employ. He had over twenty wounds, and feared that most of them were so severe that they would disfigure him for life; he dreaded Emma's reaction when she saw him again. There is plenty of excitement in these pages and long passages relating loss, infection, and pain. Laing pulled through long enough to reach Timbuktu. Yes, he made it, but the accomplishment itself was almost all he could claim. It isn't surprising that the Timbuktu he discovered was not the Timbuktu of the legends, but it wasn't even close. It was decrepit, stinking of sick and dead people and animals, in a downward spiral caused by decay and war. Laing was only able to find ancient Arabic manuscripts at the mosque, demonstrating the city's past history of scholarship. The city was in turmoil, and he could remain but a month; upon leaving, he was betrayed and murdered. His travels have been reconstructed by his letters, but his papers were stolen or destroyed or lost in the sands. Before their loss was accepted, however, Warrington made blustering accusations that they had been stolen, a farcical row that involved the French consul to Tripoli, accusations that eventually played a role in his own downfall from his long-held post and the end of the reign of the sultans of Tripoli. Emma descended into a depression for the rest of her short life. It was all a tragic and confusing end to a tale of heroism, high ideals, and obsession, vividly recounted in a thrilling book.

Absolutely brillant. The sheer detail is stunning. As a historical researcher myself I can honestly say this is a fine piece of work> The "White Mans grave" and the Sahara are brought so much to life that one can vitually feel part of the book.