A day in the life of an explorer in Africa?

June 10, 2009 11:20 AM

How can I find out what a typical day was like for a European explorer in Africa in the latter half of the 19th century?

I'm interested in as much day-to-day detail as possible: cooking, breaking camp, marching with porters, surveying, setting up camp, guard duty, etc.

I know a lot of explorers' accounts are available online at places like Gutenberg.org (Stanley, Burton, Livingstone, etc). I just don't know where in those specific accounts, or elsewhere, I can find an overview like this.

posted by El Curioso to grab bag (7 comments total)

There are a lot of books that will suit your needs. One of the best starting places is Alan Moorehead's The White Nile. If I remember correctly, Moorehead delves into the day-to-day life of his subjects in good detail, though his narrative also covers bigger political events, such as the Mahdi takeover or Khartoum.

Moorehead wrote a follow-up entitled The Blue Nile that's also probably worth a look. If not, at least check out the related titles on their respective Amazon pages...likely one of these books will strike your interest.
posted by hiteleven at 12:17 PM on June 10

Look for diaries. Until pretty recently they were used as daily logbooks. You might be able to find something here.
posted by oinopaponton at 12:18 PM on June 10

Read "King Solomon's Mines" (pub 1885) and "Allan Quatermain (pub 1887) both by Rider Haggard.
Moving through unexplored territory, camping, dealing with indigenous tribes etc. ring true of their period, and, of course make excellent reading today.
posted by lungtaworld at 12:26 PM on June 10

The book Hunting the Elephant in Africa by Colonel Stigand is full of this day to day information, though it was published in 1913. The book includes a chapter on useful tips for your own hunting camp in British East Africa, "Stalking the African," and a lot of grumbling about the damn restrictions on hunting... nothing like the good old days where you could indiscriminately kill lots of elephants without anybody bothering you. It even comes with an assurance by Teddy Roosevelt that Stigand knows what he's talking about! I used it as a primary text when writing about the origins of African national parks ... oh man, it gave me a *lot* of fodder.

A lot of the explorer accounts are on google books, as well! You can search them - all of the ones I've looked through have a list of what they packed, who was in their camp, stuff like that. If you can get through the typical, predictable litany of racist commentary on the Africans with whom they interacted, explorer accounts give you a good idea of the type of people who were hunting, what they were doing, and why. In a lot of detail, since this was how they were making themselves look particularly awesome to folks who'd be interested in funding them at home.
posted by ChuraChura at 12:31 PM on June 10 [1 favorite has favorites]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I've been working through lots of these books, but the details tend to be scattered around.

Any suggestions on specific pages/parts/chapters in specific books that have any kind of summary, as in "Today was a typical day. First, we..." or "A typical explorer's day went like this: first..."?
posted by El Curioso at 7:20 PM on June 10

I can't answer your second question, but might I suggest reading through the primary source material (diaries, etc.) yourself? If this is something that you're seriously interested in (and it's a good topic to get stuck into for sure) you'll probably find it much more rewarding to hack through the original material yourself rather than read some modern writer's interpretation of it. You can quite quickly become an expert in an area like this if you keep at it, and you'll probably be able to draw your own conclusions about the daily lives of these individuals that might differ sharply from what modern scholars have come to believe (history is hugely subjective on these issues).
posted by hiteleven at 10:16 PM on June 10

Alexandrine Tinne has a rather unique perspective. See the further reading section for reading material.
posted by alygator at 10:47 PM on June 10