[JimWhitton]

In 1857, explorers Richard Burton and Jack Speke set out across Africa searching for the source of the Nile. They fought off poisonous snakes, shot lions and rhinos, dodged cannibals’ spears, and caught hideous diseases that left them temporarily blinded and paralyzed. They foiled a plot by two hired bearers to kill them in their sleep. Nothing could stop them, not even their utter loathing of each other. Whenever they got lost, they just kept plugging away until they finally found what they were looking for.

In The Explorers, Martin Dugard describes the Burton and Speke expedition in all its gruesome glory. But the author is on his own kind of quest: to identify the stuff of which explorers are made. What moves a man to swap the silk socks of civilization for the wet feet of the wilderness? Dugard suggests seven traits that an explorer must possess—curiosity, hope, passion, courage, independence, self-discipline and perseverance—and devotes a chapter to each.

The author takes us on a circuitous route, veering wildly across space and time. In the chapter on courage, for instance, we begin on the shore of Lake Tanganyika. Leaving Burton and Speke to have a well-earned rest, we go on a side trip into philosophy, and contemplate the insights of Aristotle, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Lawrence of Arabia on the nature of human fortitude. Then we venture into neuroscience, studying what happens in a man’s brain as he deals with fear. Hopping across the ocean, we follow in the footsteps of the first brave men to cross South America and Antarctica. Finally we return to darkest Africa and catch up with Burton and Speke on the next stage of their hazardous voyage.

In a Toronto Star interview, Dugard said, “I wanted to write a book that wandered all over the place, just like an explorer wanders all over the map.” Not every reader will be thrilled with this itinerary. If you’re in a hurry to from point A to point B, you might be better off seeking out one of the full-length biographies the author recommends in the appendix. Me, I like to get off the beaten path. I was quite happy to just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Dugard’s book reminds me of the real-life tales of discovery I loved as a boy, stories set at a time when there still blank spaces on the map. The Explorers is for armchair adventurers—for those of us who yearn to plunge into the unknown, but prefer not to get our feet wet.

[KenDouglas]

There is a movie, Mountains of the Moon, from 1990. It tells the story of Burton and Speke. It’s mixed but does show strong scenes of the terrible hardships they endured in Africa.

[JimWhitton]

I just checked out that movie on IMDB. Too bad they didn’t get Richard Burton to play Captain Richard Burton. With a fake scar on his face–the captain caught a spear in his cheek on an earlier trip to Africa–the actor would have been perfect in the role.

[Author]

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