The Lake Regions of Central Africa

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive description of Eastern Africa in 1850's
Review: Burton led an amazing life of exploration and scholarship [he wrote "The Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah" after disguising himself as an Arab to travel to the sacred city; he visited Salt Lake City and wrote "City of the Saints"; after exploring in South America he wrote "Explorations of the Highlands of Brazil"; and he translated the "Arabian Nights" and poetry of Luís de Camões], still he may not be an easy writer to come to terms with for many contemporary readers. He is far from what we would call "politically correct". But he wrote so much and so well, and is practically the only writer to travel in Eastern Africa in the 1850's that is in print today (except for John Hanning Speke who was with him on this trip, and who wrote "Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile").

To put this book in context it is wise to read something about Burton, particulary Burton and Speke in Africa; know why in "Lake Regions" Burton never refers to Speke by name. (Or see the movie: "Mountains of the Moon")

The book is a detailed chronological account of nearly three years of difficult travel between Zanzibar and Lake Tanganyika. Nothing escapes Burton's observation. He writes of everything from the local hairstyles to the price of pombe (traditional beer). He gives detailed descriptions of the landscape, geography, flora, and fauna. He writes of Arabs and the Eastern slave trade. He depicts safari life in the days of human porters and mules. He tells of the people he encounters; his descriptions of Africans may be offensive to some. There is a wealth of information here, something for everyone with an interest in Eastern Africa, or exploration, or imperialism. The place names have sometimes changed from Burton's time to ours, as have the English spelling conventions of Swahili words. Anyone with any interest in Eastern Africa, especially the precolonial period, should arm themselves with a good atlas and reference book and read Burton.

Rating:
Summary: Uneven Journey
Review: Burton was a prolific writer who could crank a travel book out of a wrong turn on a trip to the post office. The story of his journey to the source of the Nile with Speke and their subsequent feud is fascinating, but this account bogs down in minutiae and is often outrageously padded with equipment lists and second-hand digests of others' travels. Burton considered himself a serious ethnographer but most will find the deep, unselfconscious racism which pervades the book off-putting. Illness and bad weather plagued the travellers and Burton complains at length about everything. Events of interest are few and far between and the outcome of the voyage was ambiguous; Burton claiming retrospectively that the interior lakes he saw in East Africa were the source of the Nile. Compensations include descriptive passages of great beauty. Of course this is must reading for anyone interested in the search for the source of the Nile or the controversy between Burton and Speke.