Description: My African Journey by Winston S. Churchill This is the small 1962 Edition with the complete text but fewer illustrations “We may divide the journey into four main stages - the jungles, the plains, the mountains, and the lake, for the lake is an essential part of the railway, and a natural and inexpensive extension to its length. In the early morning, then, we start from Mombasa Station, taking our places upon an ordinary garden seat fastened on to the cow-catcher of the engine, from which position the whole country can be seen.” “They present a continuous narrative of the lighter side of what was to me a very delightful and inspiring journey ; and it is in the hope that they may vivify and fortify the interest of the British people in the wonderful estates they have recently acquired in the north-eastern quarter of Africa, that I offer them in a connected form to the indulgence of the public. ” Front cover and spine Further images of this book are shown below Publisher and place of publication Dimensions in inches (to the nearest quarter-inch) Published by Arrangement with Neville Spearman, London; Distributed by Heron Books; printed in Switzerland. 3¾ inches wide x 6½ inches tall Please note the book's very small dimensions. Edition Length 1962 first published 1908 [xii] + 150 pages Condition of covers Internal condition Original imitation red leather blocked in gilt. The covers are scuffed and rubbed, with light surface scratching, significant variation in colour and a small tear on the rear cover. The spine gutters are split at the tail and frayed at the head. The spine ends and corners are bumped and slightly frayed. The decorative end-papers are in good condition. The text is clean throughout though the pages have yellowed somewhat, particularly in the margins. The print is very small and the five reproduced illustrations are of poor quality. Dust-jacket present? Other comments No A fairly tidy example of this very small 1962 reprint, noting discolouration to the covers and splits along the spine gutters at the tail. Illustrations, maps, etc Contents Please see below for details Please see below for details Post & shipping information Payment options The packed weight is approximately 300 grams. Full shipping/postage information is provided in a panel at the end of this listing. Payment options : UK buyers: cheque (in GBP), debit card, credit card (Visa, MasterCard but not Amex), PayPal International buyers: credit card (Visa, MasterCard but not Amex), PayPal Full payment information is provided in a panel at the end of this listing. My African Journey Contents I. The Uganda Railway II. Around Mount Kenya III. The Highlands of East Africa IV. The Great Lake V. The Kingdom of Uganda VI. Kampala VII. 'On Safari' VIII. Murchison Falls IX. Hippo Camp X. Down the White Nile XI. The Victoria and Albert Railway Illustrations Mr. Churchill and Burchell's White Rhinoceros Frontispiece On the Cow-Catcher Watching the War-Dance at Kampala Between Nimule And Gondokoro Shooting Party at Thinka Camp My African Journey Preface In so far as the collection of information is concerned, the advantages of travel may often be over-stated. So much has been written, so many facts are upon record about every country, even the most remote, that a judicious and persevering study of existing materials would no doubt enable a reader to fill himself with knowledge almost to repletion without leaving his chair. But for the formation of opinion, for the stirring and enlivenment of thought, and for the discernment of colour and proportion, the gifts of travel, especially of travel on foot, are priceless. It was with the design and in the hope of securing such prizes, that I undertook last year the pilgrimage of which these pages give account. I cannot tell whether I have succeeded in winning them ; and still less whether, if won, they are transferable. I therefore view these letters with a modest eye. They were written mainly in long hot Uganda afternoons, after the day's march was done. The larger portion has already appeared in the Strand Magazine, and what has been added was necessary to complete the story. They present a continuous narrative of the lighter side of what was to me a very delightful and inspiring journey ; and it is in the hope that they may vivify and fortify the interest of the British people in the wonderful estates they have recently acquired in the north- eastern quarter of Africa, that I offer them in a connected form to the indulgence of the public. Winston Spencer Churchill London, 1908. My African Journey The Uganda Railway The aspect of Mombasa as she rises from the sea and clothes herself with form and colour at the swift approach of the ship is alluring and even delicious. But to appreciate all these charms the traveller should come from the North. He should see the hot stones of Malta, baking and glistening on a steel-blue Mediterranean. He should visit the Island of Cyprus before the autumn rains have revived the soil, when the Messaoria Plain is one broad wilderness of dust, when every tree - be it only a thorn-bush - is an heir- loom, and every drop of water is a jewel. He should walk for two hours at midday in the streets of Port Said. He should thread the long red furrow of the Suez Canal, and swelter through the trough of the Red Sea. He should pass a day among the cinders of Aden, and a week among the scorched rocks and stones of Northern Somaliland ; and then after five days of open sea, his eye and mind will be prepared to salute with feelings of grateful delight these shores of vivid and exuberant green. On every side is vegetation, moist, tumultuous, and varied. Great trees, clad in dense foliage, shrouded in creepers, springing from beds of verdure, thrust them- selves through the undergrowth ; palms laced together by flowering trailers ; every kind of tropical plant that lives by rain and sunshine ; high waving grass, brilliant patches of purple bougainvillea, and in the midst, dotted about, scarcely keeping their heads above the fertile flood of Nature, the red-roofed houses of the town and port of Mombasa. The vessel follows a channel twisting away between high bluffs, and finds a secure anchorage, land-locked, in forty feet of water at a stone's throw from the shore. Here we are arrived at the gate of British East Africa ; and more, at the outlet and debouchment of all the trade of all the countries that lap the Victoria and Albert Lakes and the head-waters of the Nile. Along the pier now being built at Kilindini, the harbour of Mombasa Island, must flow, at any rate for many years, the main stream of East and Central African commerce. Whatever may be the produce which civlized government and enterprise will draw from the enormous territories between Southern Abyssinia and Lake Tanganyika, between Lake Rudolf and Ruenzori, as far west as the head-streams of the Congo, as far north as the Lado enclave ; whatever may be the needs and demands of the numerous populations comprised within those limits, it is along the unpretentious jetty of Kilindini that the whole traffic must pass. For Kilindini (or Mombasa, as I may be permitted to call it) is the starting-point of one of the most romantic and most wonderful rail- ways in the world. The two iron streaks of rail that wind away among the hills and foliage of Mombasa Island do not break their smooth monotony until, after piercing Equatorial forests, stretching across immense prairies, and climbing almost to the level of the European snow-line, they pause - and that only for a time - upon the edges of the Great Lake. And thus is made a sure, swift road along which the white man and all that he brings with him, for "good or ill, may penetrate into the heart of Africa as easily and safely as he may travel from London to Vienna. Short has been the life, many the vicissitudes, of the Uganda Railway. The adventurous enterprise of a Liberal Government, it was soon exposed, disowned, to the merciless criticism of its parents. Adopted as a cherished foundling by the Conservative party, it almost perished from mismanagement in their hands. Nearly ten thousand pounds a mile were ex- pended upon its construction ; and so eager were all parties to be done with it and its expense that, instead of pursuing its proper and natural route across the plateau to the deep waters of Port Victoria, it fell by the way into the shallow gulf of Kavirondo, lucky to get so far. It is easy to censure, it is im- possible not to criticize, the administrative mistakes and miscalculations which tarnished and nearly marred a brilliant conception. But it is still more easy, as one traverses in forty- eight hours countries which ten years ago would have baffled the toilsome marches of many weeks, to underrate the difficulties in which unavoidable ignorance and astonishing conditions plunged the pioneers. The British art of " muddling through " is here seen in one of its finest expositions. Through everything - through the forests, through the ravines, through troops of marauding lions, through famine, through war, through five years of excoriating Parliamentary debate, muddled and marched the railway ; and here at last, in some more or less effective fashion, is it arrived at its goal. Other nations project Central African railways as lightly and as easily as they lay down naval programmes ; but here is a railway, like the British Fleet, " in being " - not a paper plan or an airy dream, but an iron fact grinding along through the jungle and the plain, waking with its whistles the silences of the Nyanza, and startling the tribes out of their primordial nakedness with " Americani " piece goods made in Lancashire, Let us, then, without waiting in Mombasa longer than is necessary to wish it well and to admire the fertility and promise of the coastal region, ascend this railway from the sea to the lake. And first, what a road it is ! Every- thing is in apple-pie order. The track is smoothed and weeded and ballasted as if it were the London and North- Western. Every telegraph-post has its number; every mile, every hundred yards, every change of gradient has its mark ; not in soft wood, to feed the white ant, but in hard, well-painted iron. Constant labour has steadily improved the grades and curves of the permanent-way, and the train - one of those comfortable, practical Indian trains - rolls along as evenly as upon a European line. Nor should it be supposed that this high standard of maintenance is not warranted by the present financial position of the line. The Uganda Railway is already doing what it was never expected within any reasonable period to do. It is paying its way. It is beginning to yield a profit - albeit a small profit - upon its capital charge. Projected solely as a political railway to reach Uganda, and to secure British predominance upon the Upper Nile, it has already achieved a commercial value. Instead of the annual deficits upon working expenses which were regularly anticipated by those most competent to judge, there is already a substantial profit of nearly eighty thousand pounds a year. And this is but the beginning, and an imperfect beginning; for at present the line is only a trunk, without its necessary limbs and feeders, without its deep-water head at Kilindini, without its full tale of steamers on the lake ; above all, without its natural and necessary extension to the Albert Nyanza. We may divide the journey into four main stages - the jungles, the plains, the mountains, and the lake, for the lake is an essential part of the railway, and a natural and inexpensive extension to its length. In the early morning, then, we start from Mombasa Station, taking our places upon an ordinary garden seat fastened on to the cow-catcher of the engine, from which position the whole country can be seen. For a quarter of an hour we are still upon Mombasa Island, and then the train, crossing the intervening channel by a long iron bridge, addresses itself in earnest to the continent of Africa. Into these vast regions the line winds perseveringly upon a stiff up-grade, and the land unfolds itself ridge after ridge and valley after valley, till soon, with one farewell glance at the sea and at the fighting-tops of His Majesty's ship Venus rising queerly amid the palms, we are embraced and engulfed com- pletely. All day long the train runs upward and westward, through broken and undulating ground clad and encumbered with super- abundant vegetation. Beautiful birds and butterflies fly from tree to tree and flower to flower. Deep, ragged gorges, filled by streams in flood, open out far below us through glades of palms and creeper-covered trees. Here and there, at intervals, which will become shorter every year, are plantations of rubber, fibre, and cotton, the beginnings of those inexhaustible supplies which will one day meet the yet unmeasured demand of Europe for those indispensable commodities. Every few miles are little trim stations, with their water-tanks, signals, ticket-offices, and flower-beds complete and all of a pattern, backed by impenetrable bush. In brief one slender thread of scientific civilization, of order, authority, and arrange- ment, drawn across the primeval chaos of the world. In the evening a cooler, crisper air is blowing. The humid coast lands, with their glories and their fevers, have been left behind. At an altitude of four thousand feet we begin to laugh at the Equator. The jungle be- comes forest, not less luxuriant, but distinctly different in character. The olive replaces the palm. The whole aspect of the land is more friendly, more familiar, and no less fertile. After Makindu Station the forest ceases. The traveller enters upon a region of grass. Immense fields of green pasture, withered and whitened at this season by waiting for the rains, intersected by streams and watercourses densely wooded with dark, fir-looking trees and gorse-looking scrub, and relieved by bold upstanding bluffs and ridges, comprise the new panorama. And here is presented the wonderful and unique spectacle which the Uganda Railway offers to the European. The plains are crowded with wild animals. From the windows of the carriage the whole zoo- logical gardens can be seen disporting itself. Herds of antelope and gazelle, troops of zebras - sometimes four or five hundred together - watch the train pass with placid assurance, or scamper a hundred yards farther away, and turn again. Many are quite close to the line. With field-glasses one can see that it is the same everywhere, and can distinguish long files of black wildebeeste and herds of red kongoni - the hartebeeste of South Africa - and wild ostriches walking sedately in twos and threes, and every kind of small deer and gazelle. The zebras come close enough for their stripes to be admired with the naked eye. We have arrived at Simba, " The Place of Lions," and there is no reason why the passengers should not see one, or even half-a- dozen, stalking across the plain, respectfully observed by lesser beasts. Indeed, in the early days it was the custom to stop and sally out upon the royal vermin whenever met with, and many the lion that has been carried back to the tender in triumph before the guard, or driver, or any one else could think of time- tables or the block system, or the other in- convenient restrictions of a regular service. Farther up the line, in the twilight of the evening, we saw, not a hundred yards away, a dozen giraffes loUopping off among scattered trees, and at Nakuru six yellow lions walked in leisurely mood across the rails in broad daylight. Only the rhinoceros is absent, or rarely seen, and after one of his species had measured his strength, unsuccessfully, against an engine, he has confined himself morosely to the river-beds and to the undisturbed solitudes which, at a distance of two or three miles, everywhere engulf the Uganda Railway. Our carriage stopped upon a siding at Simba Station for three days, in order that we might more closely examine the local fauna. One of the best ways of shooting game in this part of the world, and certainly the easiest, is to get a trolly and run up and down the line. The animals are so used to the passage of trains and natives along the one great highway that they do not, as a rule, take much notice, unless the train or trolly stops, when their suspicions are at once aroused. The sportsmen should, there- fore, slip off without allowing the vehicle or the rest of the party to stop, even for a moment ; and in this way he will frequently find himself within two hundred and fifty or three hundred yards of his quarry, when the result will be governed solely by his skill, or want of skill, with the rifle. There is another method, which we tried on the second day in the hopes of finding a water- buck, and that is, to prowl about among the trees and undergrowth of the river-bed. In a few minutes one may bury oneself in the wildest and savagest kind of forest. The air becomes still and hot. The sun seems in an instant to assert his just prerogative. The heat glitters over the open spaces of dry sand and pools of water. High grass, huge boulders, tangled vegetation, multitudes of thorn-bushes, obstruct the march, and the ground itself is scarped and guttered by the rains into the strangest formations. Around you, breast- high, shoulder-high, overhead, rises the African jungle. There is a brooding silence, broken only by the cry of a bird, or the scolding bark of baboons, and the crunching of one's own feet on the crumbling soil. We enter the haunt of the wild beasts ; their tracks, their traces, the remnants of their repasts, are easily and frequently discovered. Here a lion has passed since the morning. There a rhinoceros has certainly been within the hour - perhaps within ten minutes. We creep and scramble through the game paths, anxiously, rifles at full cock, not knowing what each turn or step may reveal. The wind, when it blows at all, blows fitfully, now from this quarter, now from that ; so that one can never be certain that it will not betray the intruder in these grim domains to the beast he seeks, or to some other, less welcome, before he sees him. At length, after two hours' scramble and scrape, we emerge breathless, as from another world, half astonished to find ourselves within a quar- ter of a mile of the railway line, with its trolly, luncheon, soda-water, ice, etc. . . . Please note: to avoid opening the book out, with the risk of damaging the spine, some of the pages were slightly raised on the inner edge when being scanned, which has resulted in some blurring to the text and a shadow on the inside edge of the final images. Colour reproduction is shown as accurately as possible but please be aware that some colours are difficult to scan and may result in a slight variation from the colour shown below to the actual colour. In line with eBay guidelines on picture sizes, some of the illustrations may be shown enlarged for greater detail and clarity. Please note the book’s very small dimensions. The images below are all shown enlarged. U.K. buyers: To estimate the “packed weight” each book is first weighed and then an additional amount of 150 grams is added to allow for the packaging material (all books are securely wrapped and posted in a cardboard book-mailer). The weight of the book and packaging is then rounded up to the nearest hundred grams to arrive at the postage figure. I make no charge for packaging materials and do not seek to profit from postage and packaging. Postage can be combined for multiple purchases. Packed weight of this item : approximately 300 grams Postage and payment options to U.K. addresses: Details of the various postage options can be obtained by selecting the “Postage and payments” option at the head of this listing (above). Payment can be made by: debit card, credit card (Visa or MasterCard, but not Amex), cheque (payable to "G Miller", please), or PayPal. Please contact me with name, address and payment details within seven days of the end of the listing; otherwise I reserve the right to cancel the sale and re-list the item. Finally, this should be an enjoyable experience for both the buyer and seller and I hope you will find me very easy to deal with. If you have a question or query about any aspect (postage, payment, delivery options and so on), please do not hesitate to contact me. International buyers: To estimate the “packed weight” each book is first weighed and then an additional amount of 150 grams is added to allow for the packaging material (all books are securely wrapped and posted in a cardboard book-mailer). The weight of the book and packaging is then rounded up to the nearest hundred grams to arrive at the shipping figure. I make no charge for packaging materials and do not seek to profit from shipping and handling. Shipping can usually be combined for multiple purchases (to a maximum of 5 kilograms in any one parcel with the exception of Canada, where the limit is 2 kilograms). Packed weight of this item : approximately 300 grams International Shipping options: Details of the postage options to various countries (via Air Mail) can be obtained by selecting the “Postage and payments” option at the head of this listing (above) and then selecting your country of residence from the drop-down list. For destinations not shown or other requirements, please contact me before buying. Due to the extreme length of time now taken for deliveries, surface mail is no longer a viable option and I am unable to offer it even in the case of heavy items. I am afraid that I cannot make any exceptions to this rule. Payment options for international buyers: Payment can be made by: credit card (Visa or MasterCard, but not Amex) or PayPal. I can also accept a cheque in GBP [British Pounds Sterling] but only if drawn on a major British bank. Regretfully, due to extremely high conversion charges, I CANNOT accept foreign currency : all payments must be made in GBP [British Pounds Sterling]. This can be accomplished easily using a credit card, which I am able to accept as I have a separate, well-established business, or PayPal. Please contact me with your name and address and payment details within seven days of the end of the listing; otherwise I reserve the right to cancel the sale and re-list the item. Finally, this should be an enjoyable experience for both the buyer and seller and I hope you will find me very easy to deal with. If you have a question or query about any aspect (shipping, payment, delivery options and so on), please do not hesitate to contact me. Prospective international buyers should ensure that they are able to provide credit card details or pay by PayPal within 7 days from the end of the listing (or inform me that they will be sending a cheque in GBP drawn on a major British bank). Thank you. (please note that the book shown is for illustrative purposes only and forms no part of this listing) Book dimensions are given in inches, to the nearest quarter-inch, in the format width x height. Please note that, to differentiate them from soft-covers and paperbacks, modern hardbacks are still invariably described as being ‘cloth’ when they are, in fact, predominantly bound in paper-covered boards pressed to resemble cloth. Fine Books for Fine Minds I value your custom (and my feedback rating) but I am also a bibliophile : I want books to arrive in the same condition in which they were dispatched. For this reason, all books are securely wrapped in tissue and a protective covering and are then posted in a cardboard container. If any book is significantly not as described, I will offer a full refund. Unless the size of the book precludes this, hardback books with a dust-jacket are usually provided with a clear film protective cover, while hardback books without a dust-jacket are usually provided with a rigid clear cover. The Royal Mail, in my experience, offers an excellent service, but things can occasionally go wrong. However, I believe it is my responsibility to guarantee delivery. If any book is lost or damaged in transit, I will offer a full refund. Thank you for looking. Please also view my other listings for a range of interesting books and feel free to contact me if you require any additional information Design and content © Geoffrey Miller
Price: 29.99 GBP
Location: Flamborough, Bridlington
End Time: 2024-12-31T17:42:43.000Z
Shipping Cost: 26.5 GBP
Product Images
Item Specifics
Return postage will be paid by: Buyer
Returns Accepted: Returns Accepted
After receiving the item, your buyer should cancel the purchase within: 30 days
Return policy details: If any book is significantly not as described, I will offer a full refund, including return postage. All books are securely wrapped and posted in a cardboard container.
Non-Fiction Subject: History & Military
Year Printed: 1962
Binding: Hardback
Author: The Right Hon. Winston Spencer Churchill
Language: English
Publisher: Neville Spearman and Heron Books
Place of Publication: London
