Pistols and Peter Fleming

A closing bookstore is always a sad sight, but that sadness is mitigated significantly when the closing is driven by a desire to retire rather than a failure to profit, and it's further mitigated by a last-days free book bonanza . . . especially if one of the books on offer is by Peter Fleming!

That's what rocketlass happened across at a used bookstore in South Haven, Michigan last week when we were off on a family vacation, Fleming's My Aunt's Rhinoceros and Other Writings (1958), a volume of essays and short pieces. I've championed Fleming--Ian's less well-known older brother--in this space before, but you needn't take my word for it: he's recently turned up in posts on the wonderful Times Archive blog and, in honor of his just-passed centenary, the Telegraph.

I know him primarily as a writer of travel books, the best example of which is his Brazilian Adventure (1933), in which he, like many before and after him, goes off three-quarters cocked in search of Percy Fawcett's lost expedition. His rackety, danger-courting, pre-liability insurance adventures are a pure joy, their occasional somewhat dated imperialist pretensions more than made up for by Fleming's very British self-deprecating dry wit.

I've not yet read My Aunt's Rhinoceros, but the following passage from it, which rocketlass, in a neat reversal of roles, couldn't help but read aloud to me, is a nice distillation of Fleming's charms as both writer and traveling companion:

"Have you," said the note from a friend, "a spare revolver I could take with me to Kenya?" Obscurely gratified by the assumption underlying this request, which was that I am the sort of chap who (a) owns several revolvers and (b) needs at least one of them in the conduct of his day-to-day life, I fell to pondering on pistols and on how they have come down in the world. They are still carried by criminals and by army officers; but they have, I think, ceased to be a gentleman's weapon.

He continues from there to Anthony Hope and Bulldog Drummond all the way to Martians in the space of less than two pages. Really, why are you still reading this rather than ordering yourself a copy? Are you not convinced? How about this, from his essay "Hero-Bashing":

One of the worst occupational hazards of being a modern hero, whether self-made of State-manufactured, must be that your doings become--and remain--news. In the old days, after slaying your dragon, you married the king's youngest daughter and rested on your laurels. You were not immediately involved in a number of activities--such as being interviewed, writing your autobiography,, making after-dinner speechers and advertising ball-point pens--for which you had neither aptitude nor relish. You were not, in other words, either exploited or encouraged to exploit yourself.

A sentiment to which his brother's great creation, James Bond, would surely at least give an agreeable raised eyebrow.

"Every man, provided that he does not raise blisters or other impediments on his feet, can walk in a day at least half as far again as he imagines."

{Photos by rocketlass.}

In the course of writing about David Grann's The Lost City of Z (2009) the other day, I mentioned Peter Fleming's account of his own attempt to follow the footsteps of lost explorer Percy Fawcett, Brazilian Adventure (1933). In The Lost City of Z, Grann quotes a passage from Fleming that is worth sharing for its so-very-English send-up of English types:

There were the Prudent, who said: "This is an extraordinarily foolish thing to do." There were the Wise, who said: "This is an extraordinarily foolish thing to dol but at least you will know better next time." There were the Very Wise, who said: "This is a foolish thing to do, but not nearly so foolish as it sounds." There were the Romantic, who appeared to believe that if everyone did this sort of thing all the time the world's troubles would soon be over. There were the Envious, who thanked God they were not coming; and there were the other sort, who said with varying degrees of insincerity that they would give anything to come. Theyw ere the Correct, who asked me if I knew any of the people at the Embassy. There were the Practical, who spoke at length of inoculations and calibres. . . . There were the Apprehensive, who asked me if I had made my will. There were the Men Who Had Done a Ceratin Amount of That Sort of Thing In Their Time, You Know, and these imparted to me elaborate stratagems for getting the better of ants and told me that monkeys made excellent eating, and so for that mater did lizards, and parrots; they all tasted rather like chicken.

That passage sent me back to Fleming's News from Tartary (1936), which tells of Fleming's unauthorized foot journey across China. It's a more serious book, from what I remember, as the journey is simultaneously more dangerous and more plodding, but Fleming is an engaging writer no matter the subject. Here he is on the monotony of life during an forced halt:

Life in camp was irksome and monotonous. A proper expedition, when it gets held up, can pass the time with contentment and profit, sorting out its specimens, taking meteorological observations, checking its stores; but we, alas, had no specimens to sort, nothing to take meteorological observations with, and no stores worth checking. Kini washed some clothes. But a dying sepoy, or an old fishwife, or some such person had once told her that clothes were best washed in water which had ashes in it, and the only result of her public-spirited laundering was to turn everything she washed dark grey. Then she boiled some hares against a potentially meatless future, but a cat stole most of them in the night. We were down to the last Arsene Lupin. It was all rather dreary.

I played patience endlessly. I had caught the habit in Sining, and it was terrifying to think of how many games I had played since then. I knew an increasingly large number ofhte cards by their backs: the ace of diamonds had a corner off, the three of spades was almost torn in two, the queen of clubs had gun oil all over her.

Then there's this description of the habitues of an oasis in Cherchen, China:

Occasionally there was an obvious malingerer, more occasionally there was a droll, and once we were visited by an official's young wife who was every inch the malade imaginaire with the grand manner--smoking cigarettes in a long holder, contrasting her home in Peking with the barbarous rusticity of Cherchen, smoothing her sheath-like dress with delicate fingers while she squatted on the carpets.

That use of "droll" as a noun brings a smile to my face every time.

Both books are available in the Marlboro Press's wonderful travel series; like almost all the books in that series, they come with my hearty recommendation. They're far, far better than suffering through such travail-ridden travels yourself.

"You have no right to be tired!" or, why I'm not an intrepid explorer

{Photos by rocketlass.}

As will not surprise regular readers of this blog, I'm about as much of a quiet, stay-at-home person as you're likely to find. Given a choice between, on one hand, fame and adventure, and on the other, a quiet chair with a martini and a Barbara Pym novel in easy reach, and I'll soon be happily chuckling at the vicissitudes of English spinsters.

That said, a passage like this does go a long way towards reviving the twelve-year-old boy in me:

We, the undersigned, forming an expedition about to explore the interior of _________, under Mr. A., consent to place ourselves (horses and equipment) entirely and unreservedly under his orders for the above purpose, from the date hereof until our return to _______, or, on failure in this respect, to abide all consequences that may result.

It's taken from a sample agreement that the Royal Geographic Society, back in its Victorian and Edwardian heyday, recommended every expedition leader use; I love the "entirely and unreservedly," and the myriad possible horrible fates that "all consequences" might cover.

And while it doesn't convince me that I want to leave my house, it does remind me of why I'm still such a sucker for explorers' tales: my mind positively boggles at the thought that real people actually subjected themselves to the dangers and deprivations of these expeditions--willingly, and, in some cases, repeatedly. Reading the best of these books--such as Apsley Cherry-Garard's account of the Scott expedition, The Worst Journey in the World (1922)--I find myself veering from astonishment to admiration to horror, all of which eventually give way to a simply gratitude that I'm here and not there.

The book in which I found that Royal Geographic Society agreement, David Gann's The Lost City of Z (2008), is an honorable entrant in that genre, telling of Percy Fawcett's early twentieth-century Amazon explorations, from the last of which, in 1925, Fawcett never returned. In the ensuing decades, Fawcett's disappearance led countless explorers of all levels of experience to plunge into the jungle in an attempt to find him--including Peter Fleming, whose wonderfully wry Brazilian Adventure (1933) tells of his failed (and, to be fair, somewhat desultory) search. Gann himself even eventually felt compelled to enter the jungle; his trek, though aided by all that modern technology can offer, from high-clearance off-road vehicles to satellite phones, only confirmed me in my preference for the couch.

But what if you've never read Brazilian Adventure or The Lost City of Z, and therefore you're not convinced? What if you're still thinking of curing that winter-long case of cabin fever with a little adventure? Methinks a look at the realities of jungle medicine might do the trick. Here's the Royal Geographical Society again, courtesy of Gann:

Disease and injury could devastate a party, and Fawcett received some basic medical tips. He learned, for instance, how to remove a decaying tooth by "constantly pushing and pulling." If he ingested poison, he was taught to immediately make himself throw up: "Use soap-suds or gunpowder if proper emetics are not at hand." Fo a venomous snakebite, Fawcett would have to ignite gunpowder in the wound or cut away the infected flesh with a knife. "Afterwards burn out [the area around the bite] with the end of your iron ramrod, heated as near a white heat as you can readily get," Galton advised. "The arteries lie deep, and as much flesh may, without danger, be cut or burnt into, as the fingers can pinch up." . . . The treatment for hemorrhaging wound--say, from an arrow--was equally "barbarous": "Pour boiling grease into the wound."

I thought that would do it. I recommend you trade your pith helmet for a copy of The Lost City of Z and settle in on the couch here with the cats. Me, I'll be making the drinks and anxiously awaiting the first Gabriel Hunt novel. That should be enough adventure for me for the foreseeable future.

A man, his dog, and some other men with Kalashnikovs

From Rory Stewart’s The Places in Between (2004)

“Peace will come only when all the foreigners have left this country,” snapped a new arrival. “Are you a Muslim?”

I began to explain again. He spat on the ground, turned his back, and walked off, followed by five others. The Taliban head, however, took his leave gracefully, embracing me and wishing me luck. I hugged him with a show of respect and affection I did not feel.

I was left with the original three men.

“Why don’t you go down to the river there and examine the spring,” suggested the one who had asked me for money.

“No, thank you,” I said, “I am in a hurry . . . I have to get to Maidan Shahr before dark . . . I must keep going.”

“Go on.”

“No, thank you,” I said seriously. “I must keep going.”

They all laughed.

“Why are you laughing?” I asked.

“Because if you had gone down there, you would have been killed,” they replied.

I lead a quiet life. I like to stay at home. I like to read in my chair by the window, watching the birds and petting one of our cats. I like to get to bed at a reasonable hour and get up early to run along the quiet lakefront. I like to cook dinners and serve them to friends. I like to see my wife at the beginning and end of each day. I enjoy traveling, but I freely admit that I’m not an adventurous traveler, usually opting for the familiar, or places where I know I’ll see friends. And that’s okay. Day to day, I’m contented, happy to live what is a remarkably peaceful, stress-free existence.

But without people like Rory Stewart, my quiet life would be much, much less interesting. Because Rory Stewart is insane, and Rory Stewart is daring, and he doesn’t like to be home in the same bed night after night. He doesn’t mind danger—in fact, he seems to court it; then, after courting it (and, fortunately, having it spurn him), he writes about it, well. As I said, I think he might be insane.

The evidence? In January of 2002, mere months after the fall of the Taliban, he walked the length of Afghanistan. He had no reason to do so, other than an interest in the region and a desire to complete the central leg of a walk that had already seen him cross Iran, Pakistan, India, and Nepal. He took nothing but a pack, a walking stick, a knowledge of Arabic, and the hope that the historically generous Muslim hospitality remained in force in the region. He survived the walk, and the product is The Places in Between, a travel book that holds its own against Robert Byron’s and Peter Fleming’s classic works on the region.

It’s of course a trip I would never even contemplate. And even if I did, my wife, or my friends, or my parents, would surely dissuade me. They would point out that I was insane. Stewart has parents, with whom he’s apparently close, for he mentions them frequently. He acknowledges that they worry about him, but that worry doesn’t stop him from making his trek. In the face of freezing temperatures, snow-bound mountain passes, minefields, and the constant threat embodied by gun-toting men in remote, essentially lawless lands, he trudges on, talking to strangers, sleeping on floors, and sketching portraits in his notebook (many of which are, thankfully, reproduced in the book). Worries that would stop me in my tracks merely force him to be a bit more alert.

And because he’s undaunted, we get to learn up close about a region that is most often reduced to accounts of military actions and high-level political maneuverings in Kabul. Afghanistan appears in Stewart’s narrative as a land steeped in the minutiae of local history, where a young man can recite his genealogy going back fifteen generations, where places are remembered and described by the acts of violence that occurred there,and where decades of war have left a mixture of convoluted, overlapping loyalties that defy quick understanding. More ancient history remains fully present, as well. Stewart walks the route taken by Tamerlane’s descendant, Babur, founder of the Mughal empire, and he is able to plot his journey so that each night he is at a new town largely because medieval caravans traveled about the same distance in a day, and many of the caravanserai that sustained them each night still stand. Mosques and minarets from Tamerlane’s time dot the landscape, as do more ancient monuments, like the carved niches for the giant stone Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

Sometimes, Stewart walks alone, but for much of the book he is saddled with three agents of the Afghanistan security service, foisted upon him at his entrance into the country. They are violent, argumentative, brave, fascinating, and infuriating, their rapid-fire mixture of threats, boasts, and complaints forcing an ever-changing view of Afghanistan, its people, and its future. At other times, Stewart walks alone, accompanied only by a dog he adopts halfway through the journey; occasionally he picks up temporary companions of dubious intentions, like the men at the opening of this post. They are not by any means the only people to jokingly threaten Stewart’s life; nor are they the only ones whose actual intentions are difficult to divine. But plenty of other people, despite their poverty, are generous beyond belief to this stranger who appears out of nowhere, and their kindness and conversation helps sustain Stewart’s enthusiasm for his project.

Throughout, he remains, as the best travel writers do, quiet, open, friendly, and, somehow, unafraid. That poise means that by the end of the book, he’s still somewhat of a cipher (though he displays clear passion about human life and human rights, and about history and artifacts). Yet I think his sublimation of the self is probably necessary to this sort of journey; a more engaged, more forceful personality—someone less able to subdue his frustrations, confusions, and even, at times, anger—would have been far less well-equipped to handle the rigors and privations of the walk. At times, such equanimity enables Stewart to reach a state of peaceful communion with the land that is positively enviable.

So maybe he’s not insane after all. Maybe he’s as contented as I am. Maybe the open air and an uncertain future are his version of my chair by the window. Regardless, I am grateful, and I selfishly hope he keeps traveling and writing and drawing.

On the River of Doubt

One of the many areas of agreement between me and my co-worker Jim is that there can never be too much written about Theodore Roosevelt. But whereas, with Abraham Lincoln, about whom I feel the same, the inextinguishable possibilities of history and biography lie more in the complexity of his psyche, Roosevelt’s richness as a subject is directly tied to his physical inexhaustibility. He crammed so much incident and interest into one life that Edmund Morris’s biography required two volumes just to get through the presidential years.

Nonetheless, I was surprised to find that I wasn't the only person who hadn't heard of the South American river journey that is the subject of Candice Millard’s River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey. Another co-worker who’s a TR fan checked the H. W. Brands biography; the journey down the River of Doubt receives a scant four pages. Candice Millard spreads the story out over 400 pages, and it's worth it.

Roosevelt began the trip as a way to cope with his landslide loss to Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 election, wherein Roosevelt had broken with the Republicans and run as the candidate of the Progressive Party. Crushed by the defeat, Roosevelt was quick to sign on to an idea proposed by an old friend, Father Zahm of Notre Dame, that he spend a few months traveling the Amazon River. Roosevelt put Zahm in charge of the planning. Zahm, for whom Millard doesn't attempt to hide her contempt, was no fan of hard work, and he delegated the organizational responsibilities to a man whose only credential was leadership of a disastrously failed Arctic exploration. The planning, thus, was poor: deep in the jungle, the members of the expedition were exceedingly displeased to find tins of luxury mustards where they expected to find basic foodstuffs.

The journey was to be fairly unadventurous, compared to some of Roosevelt’s travels as a young man. But once in Brazil—already chafing at the thought of breaking no new ground with his trip—he was quickly convinced to attempt something more daring: a descent of the River of Doubt, an Amazon tributary never before navigated by non-natives. The Brazilian government gave him its full support, in the form of a large number of camaradas, or laborers, and Brazil’s greatest explorer, Colonel Candido Mariana da Silva Rondon, who would be co-leader of the expedition.

From the start of the trip, things went poorly, as even the long overland journey, through territory familiar to Colonel Rondon from earlier exploration, was slower and more difficult than expected. Pack animals dropped dead, food supplies ran low, and malaria began its relentless attack on the group. Father Zahm quickly wore out his welcome through laziness and racism, which irked both Rondon and Roosevelt. The final straw came when he suggested that he be borne in a litter by four camaradas, because, “The Indian is made to carry priests.” Roosevelt asked Father Zahm to step into his tent; when they emerged, the Father was on his way back to Sao Paulo. (A private browbeating by TR is something better imagined than experienced. Even thinking about it makes me want to do whatever he thinks I should do. Quickly.)

The picture Millard paints of Roosevelt is the one we’re accustomed to: strong in body and stronger in will, brave to the point of foolhardiness, indefatigable, and a bit bull-headed. But alongside him she places fully-realized portraits of his son, Kermit, and of Colonel Rondon, who to this day remains a hero in Brazil for his work on behalf of the Amazon’s native population. You don’t need to know much about Roosevelt to realize that he would have trouble with the rule Rondon drummed into his exploration corps: in contact with Indians, “die if you must, but never kill.” Roosevelt was a man who cherished the idea of selling one’s life dear. Yet the element of willpower in Rondon’s adherence to his philosophy of life was so clear—the life hewing so closely to the ideals—that Roosevelt respected Rondon even as the River of Doubt tested the men and their new friendship.

As the expedition makes its way down the river, beset by difficulties at every turn. Millard describes the life of the jungle and explains how centuries of adaptive pressures had fitted animals and plants into ever-tighter evolutionary niches. With the verve of a student of natural history, she tells of the dreaded candiru (which I knew of from Peter Fleming’s excellent Brazilian Adventure), the monkey fish, which can leap high enough out of the water to snag monkeys from low branches, and the more familiar—but no less scary—piranha and caiman.

The men suffered from disease, hunger, and deadly rapids. The jungle itself, in its monotony as much as its dangers, preyed on their minds. Millard quotes from my favorite Brazilian travel book, H. R. Tomlinson’s 1912 The Sea and the Jungle

The forest of the Amazons is not merely trees and shrubs. It is not land. It is another element. Its inhabitants are arborean; they have been fashioned for life in that medium as fishes to the seas and birds to the air. Its green apparition is persistent, as the sky is and the ocean. In months of travel it is the horizon which the traveler cannot reach.

Millard conveys that tedium, and the danger, hunger, and weariness of the expedition, as well as the best travel writers—everyone from Apsley Cherry-Garrard to Bill Bryson—to the point where I found myself admiring the men just for getting up from their bedrolls in the morning.

Well into the journey, Roosevelt develops a fever and wastes away before our eyes, from the hale man who just the year before delivered a speech in Milwaukee with five bullets in his chest from a would-be assassin, to skin-and-bones shell, unable to walk. At that point, it doesn't matter that we know he died in his bed years later. There are thirty days ahead on the River of Doubt, and we see no escape. Getting out was Roosevelt's last great adventure, and thanks to Candice Millard, we now know all about it.