BOOK OR THE WEEK

Taranaki Daily News, 25 July 1931, Page 13 (Supplement)

BOOK OR THE WEEK

MYSTERIOUS AFRICA

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C.E.)

'The Black Journey,** by Georges-Marie Haardt and Louis Audouin-Dubreuil • Geoffrey Bles, London, through Thos. Avery and Sons, Ltd., New Plymouth.

Perhaps an apology is needed for going back three years or more to find a book for this week’s column. “The Black Journey” made its appearance, in January, 1928, and a second printing was issued three months later. One might suggest that by this time it has been forgotten by all except a few readers, and that is a very good excuse for an attempt to revive it. But a far stronger reason is the fact that new supplies of this very fine travel story have been made available at the bargain price of 7s 6d. A big book, stoutly bound, well printed and very freely and adequately illustrated, it is the type of volume one would expect to pay 15s or £1 for. At the new price it must prove very attractive to readers who like to see on their shelves really substantial books of the kind that bear re-reading. And a book about Central Africa is always a handy thing to have, for Africa is still a mysterious country.

The story is that of the Citroen Central Africa Expedition, led by the two writers of the book, MM. Haardt and Audouin-Dubreuil, at the behest of M. Andre Citroen, who had conceived the idea of opening up darkest Africa by means of motor transport. Prior to October, 1924, these hardy explorers had conquered the Sahara by motor and made their way to Timbuctoo. Their success prompted the tremendously greater undertaking—another crossing of the Sahara from Algeria and a drive through the French colonies in equatorial Africa and, if possible, on by the Belgian Congo and the British mandated territory to the very shores of the Indian Ocean. Even a glance at the map of their route suggests the magnitude of the enterprise: the story reveals it in all its grandeur and complexity. It was a big expedition, no fewer than eight motor-trucks, equipped with caterpillar wheels, taking part. It was big also in its personnel and its objectives. The directors of its various activities included Commandant Bettembourg, treasurer and quarter-mast-er; Leon Poirier and Georges Specht, cinema experts; M. Bergonier, zoologist and medical officer; Charles Brull, en-gineer-in-chief; and Alexandre Jacovleff, a great traveller and student of ethnography. All told, a dozen mechanics were engaged in driving and looking after the trucks, and theirs was a very big job. For thousands of miles the expedition motored through a country in which vehicles .of any kind were unknown. Desert, mountain, forest, swamp—the caterpillars tackled them all, and it is thrilling to read of the difficulties overcome, the devices employed to cross big rivers in the middle of darkest Africa or to penetrate the gloomy forest. There is, as one might easily imagine, a wonderful story in the mere journey of the trucks. But this many-sided expedition has a great deal more to tell. Its members studied the native peoples among whom they journeyed, investigated the animal life around them, and experienced the delights and dangers of big-game hunting. Combining all the various interests, the historians of the expedition were able to present a story full of the widest appeal. They have a keen eye for detail and a shrewd knowledge of the values of circumstances /and incidents, so that they are all the time conveying information, yet without the slightest suggestion of airing their great knowledge or forcing opinions upon the reader. In their pleasant narrative style the story unfolds itself naturally. Everyone has read of the desert mirages, but perhaps never before in just such a description as this: “Through the layers of air in perpetual motion the refraction seems to grow crazy, objects lose any permanent shape, everything seems to toss about, to take first one form and then another, or to Increase or diminish in size; a hump in the ground seems like a huge rock; the vehicle suddenly takes the shape of one of the rolling towers of Hannibal’s armies, next moment it is like nothing more than a telegraph pole, then it is no longer anything, it has disappeared. It reappears the next second a little to the left of us under its normal aspect—strange, wearying- and obsessing hallucinations like the impressions produced by a high fever.” There are' many very vivid descriptions of the circumstances in which the explorers find themselves as they pass from one region to another. At the Niger, we are told, the Black Continent begins in reality. ‘‘A hesitating and mixed flora, a mongrel of humanity; vegetable brush, animal brush, human brush, amongst whom we are to live for some weeks, since, as our direction is eastwards towards Lake Tchad, we shall remain in the same latitude. Now if anyone journeys on the terrestrial globe descending a meridian, each day offers a new spectacle; but if one follows a parallel the countries succeeding each other often offer striking analogies.” Neat allusions, not without humour, add to the interest of the story. While still not far from the desert the expedition visits the Sultan of Maradi, who is described as a happy sovereign. “His budget balances; his mata (wives) as well as his subjects obey him; he possesses numerous fields of millet apd indigo; his dignified sister keeps his house in perfect order; in his garden he can contemplate Fatima, the favourite, suckling his latest child beneath the shade of a baobab, or observe the wobbling flight of the toucans with their huge beaks, thinking the while how wise were his ancestors who did not put the verb 'to run’ in the Haussa tongue. Nevertheless a shadow darkens Moussa’s picture of contentment: he has a hundred mothers-in-law! Serki Moussa married four or five of the 67 daughters of Barmou, Sultan of Tessaoua, whose harem numbers a hundred women. Moussa has confided to us that he does not often go to visit his noble father-in-law.” It is exceedingly pleasant to spend an hour or two in the company of the verv remarkable people met by the explorers—giants and pigmies, clothed and nude, more or less “civilised” and simply natural. There are shrewd comments on the colonising methods of France, Belgium and Britain. Marion Oran’s delightful books on Gardening give pleasure to all one’s friends: The Garden of Experience, The Gardens of Good Hope, The Joy of the Ground, 7s. 6d. each; Wind Harps, 12s. 6d. and The Garden of Ignorance, 4s. 6d, •—Thos. Avery and Sons, Ltd., New Plymouth.