Mileage figures are given in statute miles—5,280 feet per mile. Temperatures cited are in degrees Fahrenheit. One pound sterling comprised twenty shillings; a shilling comprised twelve pence. A guinea equaled a pound plus a shilling. A sovereign was a gold coin worth a pound. When dollars are referred to, they are Spanish dollars unless otherwise stated.
Though it is difficult to attach a modern value to these figures, cost-of-living indicators for the era provide a basis for comparison. For example, in 1825, 500 pounds a year was a comfortable annual wage for a mid-level government bureaucrat living in London. The salary of 950 pounds a year paid to His Britannic Majesty’s consul general to the Regency of Tripolitania, spent in Tripoli (where living costs were far lower than in London), would have accommodated a princely lifestyle.
Finally, a word about the transliteration of Arabic words. Writing Arabic words in English presents a number of difficulties, even for those familiar with both languages. In 1926, when T. E. Lawrence sent his 130,000-word manuscript of Revolt in the Desert to be typeset, a sharp-eyed proofreader noted that it was full of inconsistencies in the spelling of Arabic words. Among other things, the reader pointed out that “Jeddah” (the city) alternated with “Jidda” throughout the book, while a man whose name began as Sherif Abd el Mayin later became el Main, el Mayein, el Muein, el Mayin, and le Muyein. Lawrence refused to change the spellings. “Arabic words,” he replied, “won’t go into English exactly, for their consonants are not the same as ours, and their vowels, like ours, vary from district to district.” So it is.
In early drafts, I found jabal, jebel, gebel, gibel, and gabal (meaning “mountain”) appearing randomly throughout my pages, while coffle, caffle, goffle, kaffila, and kafila (meaning “caravan”) also made seemingly spontaneous appearances. My first inclination was to solve this difficulty by omitting all Arabic words from the text, excluding proper names, but I soon discovered that this robbed the narrative of some of its flavor. I therefore restored some of the excluded words, settling on a single spelling throughout, trying to pick the transliteration that best captured, phonetically, the original sound as spoken by a native speaker from the southern Mediterranean. When its meaning was not obvious in the context of the sentence, I have provided a definition of the word at first mention.
PRAISE FOR
THE RACE FOR TIMBUKTU
“The story of the race between Laing, Clapperton, and others to reach Timbuktu makes for a gripping historical tale.” — Wall Street Journal
“Kryza’s narration of Laing’s perilous journey is electrifying.” — Booklist
“Frank Kryza has given those of us who still yearn for the days of romantic adventure, ‘undiscovered empires,’ and vast empty spaces on our maps an immense satisfaction. Kryza’s tale is so well told that the reader is swept up in the African explorers’ experience of heat, distance, disease, and marauding Saharan bands.”
—Lynn Schooler, author of The Last Shot and The Blue Bear
“[Kryza is] a crafty storyteller with a sharp eye for detail…. He has peppered his tale with vivid portraits.” — San Francisco Chronicle
“Kryza, who lived in Africa for eleven years and traveled Laing’s route, writes evocatively of the beauty of the African landscape and provides chilling glimpses of the barbarism of the slave trade.”
— Publishers Weekly
“With vivid insights and solid research … Kryza’s evocations of the political infighting, the mesmerizing expanse of desert sands, and the elusive but deeply sinister Tuareg tribesmen are stunning.”
—Pat Shipman, author of To the Heart of the Nile
“A jolly good tale of nineteenth-century imperial adventure…. A treat for fans of Saharan exploration.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Frank Kryza so accurately captures the Sahara you will feel its grit on your tongue. He brings to light the history of Alexander Gordon Laing, a man driven by ambition, romance, and a compulsion to achieve glory and honor at whatever personal cost. A terrific read.” —Larry D. Sall, Ph.D., Dean of Libraries, University of Texas at Dallas
ALSO BY FRANK T. KRYZA
The Power of Light
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
THE REPRODUCTIONS OF the large continental maps of Africa by Blaeu and Hall were made from originals in the author’s collection. The maps of Tripoli Harbor and the “Tripoli Route” are reproduced courtesy of the British Library, London. The portraits of Alexander Gordon Laing, Lord Bathurst, Sir Joseph Banks, Hugh Clapperton, Richard Lander, Sir John Barrow, and Dixon Denham are in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, London, and are reproduced here by permission. The portraits of Mungo Park and René Caillié appeared originally as steel engravings in the frontispieces of their respective books. The hand-drawn map of Laing’s route from Tripoli to Ghadames, the drawing of the English Garden, and E. W. Bovill’s map of Laing’s journey from Tripoli to Timbuktu are reproduced with permission of the Hakluyt Society and Cambridge University Press. The photograph of “the Castle” appeared originally in Angelo Piccioli’s 1935 The Magic Gate of the Sahara, published in London by Methuen and Company, and is reproduced here by permission. The reproductions of the steel engravings of Aney Mountain, Lake Chad, El Kanemi, Barca Gana, the Fulani lancer, the woman of Sokhna, and the city of Kano are taken from Dixon Denham’s account of the Denham, Oudney, and Clapperton expedition, published by John Murray in 1825. The drawing of Timbuktu is from Caillié’s 1830 book. The engravings of the slave caravan and the Tuareg warrior appeared originally in Lyon’s 1825 account. The photograph of Laing’s tiny coffin appeared originally in Bonnel de Mézières’s 1912 monograph.
Copyright
HARPER PERENNIAL
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2006 by Ecco,
an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
THE RACE FOR TIMBUKTU.
Copyright © 2006 by Frank T. Kryza.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © JULY 2010 ISBN: 978-0-062-03037-5
First Harper Perennial edition published 2007.
The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:
Kryza, Frank T.
The race for Timbuktu: in search of Africa’s city of gold/
Frank T. Kryza.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-10: 0-06-056064-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-056064-5
1. Tombouctou (Mali)—History—19th century. 2. Laing, Alexander Gordon.
3. Africa, West—Discovery and exploration. 4. Explorers—Africa, West—Biography.
5. Travelers—Africa, West—Biography. 6. Explorers—Great Britain—Biography. I. Title.
DT551.9.T55K79 2006
966.23—dc22 2005049491
ISBN-10: 0-06-056065-7 (pbk.)
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-056065-2 (pbk.)
07 08 09 10 11 /RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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