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"A sometimes terrifying, sometimes hilarious collection of writing on the perils of the road"
So begins an anthology of travellers tales that more or less go badly. Some, I've read before, Peter Matthiessen, Wilfred Thesiger, Eric Newby, others were new to me.
An overrepresented sampling of Canadian and western authors, and - given the date of publication, 1990 - well, the world was a very much different place. That, at least, I like.
The stories, for the by and large, the excerpt from the larger tale doesn't for the most part compel me to read the entirety. Perhaps, in such instances as the tales by Graham Greene or Dirk Bogarde or Umberto Eco, make me want to read the entire volume, capture the entire sense of the journey or novel, but - as an anthology it fell rather flat in my eyes.
As an introduction to authors I haven't yet read - and many I won't, it was fine, but it's soon to back to the bookstore with this and search out something a little more substantial.
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Robert Byron, the Penultimate Travel Writer, on Visiting Russia and Tibet in the early '30's.
His visit to Russia, perspicacious observer of customs, intelligent, entirely at odds with the revolution and the 5 year plan, rejecting all offers to tour the factories and means of production instead spending his time in the churches looking up the Icon Painters Roublev & Theophanes, studying Byzantine art, visiting the portrait "Our Lady of Vladimir", making his notes on architecture, the mood and disposition of the populace.
He's erudite, well educated, informed, the ideal travel writer.
Then, by Aeroplane to Iraq, which takes a week as they are forever stopping in Spain, Italy, Greece, Africa, Turkey - for lunch, to overnight, to visit and see the sights, take on petrol, pick up mail, much like a jaunty automobile trip, visiting all the furthest flung outposts of the Empire, stopping at abandoned forts and castles still populated with the dressed skeletons of the former inhabitants.
Once upon a time he was the norm, for an educated man of privilege, now he would be rarer than...well.
His descriptions, Darjeeling, the climb into Tibet, the oft-repeated instances of British Bad Behaviour and unfavourable reporting on their customs (culturally insensitive, and Byron after his own fashion continues the tradition) in Tibet had made them rather unwelcome visitors, and so he's travelling without the certainty that he'll be allowed in...
British Tourism hasn't changed much.
Comical but cruel descriptions of the locals, stooping to the scathing, his descriptive powers are unsurpassed, every course of every meal is detailed, his descriptions of the flora, fauna, customs, he epitomizes the British Nobleman Abroad, easy manners, privilege, his condescension towards the local people and custom.
It's a great read, and I while I frequently find I share his views (or means of expressing them) it also is a reminder to question my prejudices, again, it would be as interesting to read some of the local commentary made upon him. A much different travel writer than Alexandra David-Néel, who covered the same ground but in an entirely different fashion not even a decade before.
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In which they cross over the rockies, go down the Columbia, spend the summer on the West Coast, returning the following year. While Lewis & Clark do split up after crossing the rockies they do not go into the territory of Yellowstone or the Black Hills, which rather disappointed me as I would like to have read their observations. And again the superfluity of game, black bears, grizzly bears, bison, elk, moose, wolves, swift foxes, etc, etc.
The second volume again reminds one of the horrors that were commonplace, flies, mosquitos, gnats, ticks, abscesses, the scourge of illnesses now largely extinct or forgotten about....
Descriptions of unknown illnesses cured through sweat lodges, of a Chief lying perfectly still, a paralysis of sound mind and body, for 3 years, descriptions vague enough that no concrete diagnosis can be made.
Then, on the Pacific side, there are the descriptions of the countless villages and charnel houses they investigated along the way; the grave goods offered, the sacrificing of horses to honour dead tribe members. And the descriptions, largely unflattering, of the various tribes they encountered, the head-binding & shaping techniques used to mark identity amongst different tribes, their various appearances and customs, etc, etc.
One highlight, the return of a medal bestowed upon a chief, the chief knowing to be wary of strangers bearing gifts, a tale as old as time, because with the gifts attend the invisible miasma of disease, guns, war, and change.
Now - as interesting as that all was, and informative, it's time now to try and find some contemporaneous native writings on Lewis & Clark to, to try and understand and see the other point of view, too often we're left with the victors narrative and miss out on the impression they might have made upon the tribes they contacted, which would be as valuable. Lewis & Clark were only heroes to the American Government, I suspect strongly they were not so well regarded by the locals...
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Didn't think to pick it up as I got plenty out of the cover and the reviews on the back...
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Reading the Lewis & Clark Journals - living vicariously the Spirit of Adventure, the Charge by Jefferson, instructions, furnishing them with all manners of assistance, letters of credit against the US Government, in every way preparing for the success of the expedition. The purpose, of course, to have them report upon the newly acquired territories of the United States, and introduce the natives to their new government.
I was disappointed they didn't bring along a prospector.
Anyways, random thoughts inspired by the first volume:
The territory was unknown to them, but visited by a great many others, including Native Americans & French Fur Traders.
The reporting from outposts ever further from 'civilization' as they gradually leave behind the familiar and enter into the unknown.
The abundance of natural fruit (plums, cherries, etc), game (wolves, ferocious grizzly bears, bison herds in the tens of thousands), descriptions of now extinct (Carolina) parakeets, other species.
The idea of "Frontiers" - always personal, somebody, somewhere, some intelligence has always been before. "New" is always "New to Us".
That they travel with a vaccine against Smallpox - a lesser version of the pox that will build their immunity. "Vaccines" have been around for 1000's of years, so take that Anti-Vaxxers!!!
Noting that in their medicine chest almost every cure involves lead or mercury, the greater toxicity of which would hopefully suspend the ailment before killing the patient.
The descriptions of fossils weathering out - a "petrified fish skeleton some 45 feet long", that they are perpetually finding themselves much annoyed by ticks, mosquitos, blowflies, gnats, midges, and the countless biting flies of the prairies, of buffalo jumps, of all the wonders they passed upon the way - and then - the descriptions of what is now Montana - recognizing the landscapes - now largely tamed - Milk River, Great Falls, etc, and marvel at how we've brought under the plow so much, yet it hasn't in the least added to it's fertility. Following along the journals - looking forward to descriptions of the Black Hills and Yellowstone (but they will, I imagine, be covered in Volume 2 - the return home), the descriptions of the tribes and people they meet (not always kind, or through the appropriate cultural lens), the descriptions of their dress, habit, customs (for example, how they marvelled at Captain Lewis's Black Slave York, and the natives would all offer him up their wives for a time, in hopes of a more permanent souvenir of his visit), the realization (again) that we are so little ourselves and so much the culture within we are raised, the nods to Levi-Bruhl's "Primitive Mentality" - the ceremony to make a shield, by which the shield acquires a magical ability to repel all bullets and arrows, the mourning ceremonies - cutting of the hair, the severing of digits from the hand - symbols of immense antiquity and long out of mind. The more "Lascivious" portions described in Latin, ...
I could go on. It's travel through time and place to a world physically adjacent and yet very different. I followed along the journals with a map giving the dates they arrived at each location: https://www.nps.gov/lecl/planyourvisit/maps.htm
And if you can't find a hardcopy you can read the original's here: https://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/journals/contents
My version is somewhat edited for clarity (2 volumes, 1000 pages), the originals are somewhat longer. No great prose, merely the thrill of discovery.