Table Of ContentTRAVELLERS 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 ]
