Travellers in Africa: British Travelogues, 1850-1900 PDF
Preview Travellers in Africa: British Travelogues, 1850-1900
TRAVELLERS IN AFRICA British Travelogues, 1850–1900 TIM YOUNGS General editor John M. MacKenzie When the ‘Studies in Imperialism’ series was founded by Professor John M. MacKenzie more than thirty years ago, emphasis was laid upon the conviction that ‘imperialism as a cultural phenomenon had as significant an effect on the dominant as on the subordinate societies’. With well over a hundred titles now published, this remains the prime concern of the series. Cross-disciplinary work has indeed appeared covering the full spectrum of cultural phenomena, as well as examining aspects of gender and sex, frontiers and law, science and the environment, language and literature, migration and patriotic societies, and much else. Moreover, the series has always wished to present comparative work on European and American imperialism, and particularly welcomes the submission of books in these areas. The fascination with imperialism, in all its aspects, shows no sign of abating, and this series will continue to lead the way in encouraging the widest possible range of studies in the field. Studies in Imperialism is fully organic in its development, always seeking to be at the cutting edge, responding to the latest interests of scholars and the needs of this ever- expanding area of scholarship. Propaganda and empire The manipulation of British public opinion, 1880–1960 John M. MacKenzie Imperialism and popular culture ed. John M. MacKenzie Ephemeral vistas The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World’s Fairs, 1851–1939 Paul Greenhalgh ‘At duty’s call’ A study in obsolete patriotism W. J. Reader Images of the army The military in British art, 1815–1914 J. W. M. Hichberger The empire of nature Hunting, conservation and British imperialism John M. MacKenzie Imperial medicine and indigenous societies ed. David Arnold Imperialism and juvenile literature ed. Jeffrey Richards Asia in western fiction ed. Robin W. Winks and James R. Rush Making imperial mentalities Socialisation and British imperialism ed. J. A. Mangan Empire and sexuality The British experience Ronald M. Hyam Imperialism and the natural world ed. John M. MacKenzie Emigrants and empire British settlement in the dominions between the wars ed. Stephen Constantine Revolution and empire English politics and the American colonies in the seventeenth century Robert M. Bliss Air power and colonial control The Royal Air Force 1919–39 David E. Omissi Acts of supremacy The British Empire and the stage, 1790–1930 J. S. Bratton et al. Policing the Empire Government, authority and control, 1830–1940 ed. David Anderson, David Killingray Policing and decolonisation Nationalism, politics and the police, 1917–65 ed. David Anderson, David Killingray Popular imperialism and the military, 1850–1950 ed. John M. MacKenzie The language of empire Myths and metaphors of popular imperialism, 1880–1918 Robert H. MacDonald Travellers in Africa British Travelogues, 1850–1900 Tim Youngs MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS Manchester Copyright © Tim Youngs 1994 Published by MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS ALTRINCHAM STREET, MANCHESTER, M1 7JA, UK www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Extracts from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, A Norton Critical Edition, edited by Robert Kimbrough, are reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. © 1988, 1981, 1963 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Copyright renewed 1991 by Robert A. Kimbrough. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Youngs, Tim. Travellers in Africa : British travelogues, 1850–1900 / Tim Youngs. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0–7190–3969–X 1. British travellers—History—19th century. 2. Africa — Description and travel. 3. Travellers—Africa. I. Title. G240.Y69 1994 916.04’23—dc20 94–12624 ISBN 0 7190 3969 X hardback The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Photoset in Trump Medieval by Northern Phototypesetting Co. Ltd., Bolton CONTENTS List of figures page — vii General introduction — ix Author’s acknowledgements — x Foreword, 2017 — xiii Introduction 1 1 Adventures in Abyssinia 14 The terrain 14 Mansfield Parkyns: the black diamond 15 The hostage crisis 24 The reporter 29 The capitalist 37 The emissary 39 The outcome 48 2 Victorian writing; African eating: digesting Africa 54 Food and the town 54 Raw states 58 Eating and writing 72 Food, commodity, and identity 75 3 Beads and cords of love 81 The context 81 Speke’s cords of love 84 Grant’s modesty and the cooking pot 93 Burton’s baubles 95 Cameron: the umbrella and the loin cloth 99 The white man with the open hand 105 4 ‘Gone the cry of “Forward, forward” crisis and narrative 113 Get Emin 113 The crisis of authority 118 Troup and damages 121 Barttelot: the true English nature 122 Jameson and the good name 127 Jephson’s class 131 The doctor 135 Ward: the adventurer 137 Stanley and the book 140 [ v ] CONTENTS 5 Consuming Stanley 151 The press 151 Public opinion and the sham explorer 167 Stanley and the market 173 6 Vaporising Bula Matari: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness 182 Conclusion — 208 Bibliography — 215 Index — 231 [ vi ] FIGURES 1 King Theodore’s House at Magdala 1869. By kind permission of the Royal Geographical Society page 27 2 G. H. Portal in Abyssinian Costume. From Gerald H. Portal, My Mission to Abyssinia (London: Edward Arnold, 1892) 40 3 ‘An Abyssinian Devouring Raw Beef’. From John Camden Hotten, ed., Abyssinia and Its People; or, Life in the Land of Prester John (London: John Camden Hotten, 1868) 60 4 African celebratory feast in Boma, Zaire. Dr Falkenstein 1876. By kind permission of the Royal Geographical Society 63 5 Speke with copy of Blackwood’s Magazine 1864. By kind permission of the Royal Geographical Society 86 6 ‘Stanley’s Hot Goal’. Rare Bits, 15 November 1890. By kind permission of the Royal Geographical Society 164 7 John Bull and Stanley. John Bull, 22 November 1890. By kind permission of the Royal Geographical Society 166 8 First house built by Stanley, showing railway material. Photographed by Moore in the 1880s. By kind permission of the Royal Geographical Society 188 9 Congo railway material. Photographed by Moore in the 1880s. By kind permission of the Royal Geographical Society 190 [ vii ] GENERAL EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION Non-fictional publishing in the nineteenth century was sustained by accounts of exploration and travel. Publishers’ lists abounded with such works which became the major means by which representations of other geographies and other cultures were transmitted to a western public. By the last few decades of the century, these publications had become a significant arena for the discussion and dissemination of some of the key issues of the imperial project. Those produced by dominant figures like David Livingstone and some of those relating to causes célèbres such as the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition or the death of Gordon were among the greatest best-sellers of the age. If most of the purchasers of the originals were members of the middle and upper classes, material from them inevitably percolated downwards through popular summaries, juvenile literature and articles in periodicals. Such works of travel have been the subject of increasingly sophisticated studies in recent years, for they are capable of delivering insights into the attitudes and psychology of their originators, the discourses of power and intellectual hegemony through which they represented other peoples and cultures and the demands of the growing market which they satisfied. They are in other words a prime location for the myths, metaphors and tropes of imperial hegemony as well as of the doubts and ambiguities that characterised the extension of empire. They were not of course produced in a vacuum. As Tim Youngs demonstrates in this study, they can be understood only within specific social and economic contexts, by careful reference to their attendant relationships of commerce and class. He also places them within the rapidly developing dynamic of Victorian imperialism. He introduces strikingly fresh criteria, for example diet and eating habits, into the discussion of the representation of cultural relativities and demonstrates the complexity of the ‘struggles for meaning, control, and definition’ together with questions of social and national identity which permeate these publications. In his extended discussion of the many accounts of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, he takes the analysis of that extraordinary sequence of events in important and stimulating new directions. I commend this work as a significant contribution to the post-structuralist debate about culture and imperialism. John M. MacKenzie [ ix ]
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