“It had become a place of darkness. But there was in it one river especially, a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land.”
——–Joseph Conrad “Heart of Darkness”
“Now, I don’t know if you’ve got it in your heads yet, but the Pott family wasn’t a very conventional family — that is, they were all rather out of the ordinary. …
So when it came to buying a car, they were all determined that it shouldn’t be just any car, but something a bit different from everyone else’s — not one of those black beetle sedans that looks much the same back and front so that, in the distance, you don’t know if it’s coming or going, but something rather special — something rather adventurous.”
——— Ian Fleming
Illustration courtsey of ianfleming.com
“Your mother is your mother, even if one of her legs is too short.”
“Ask for rain and you’re asking for mud!”
“Two buttocks cannot avoid friction.”
“He said in English, ‘They do not want your life, _bwana_. They want your shoes.'”
—-“Dark Star Safari:Overland From Cairo to Cape Town”
Repeat after me: “Vague is good”
“It is always a mistake to try to explain plans for the onward journey. Such plans sound meaningless because they are so presumptuous. Travel at its best is accidental, and you can’t explain improvisation.”
————-Paul Theroux
“Large-leaved and many-footed shadowing, what god rules over Africa, what shape, What avuncular cloud-man beamier than spears?”
———Wallace Stevens “The Greenest Continent”
“All news out of Africa is bad. It made me want to go there…”
——–Paul Theroux “Dark Star Safari”
August 4th, Sunday, 1805
“Proceeded on verry early and Brackfast at the Camp Capt Lewis left yesterday morning; at this Camp he left a note informing that he discovered no fresh Sign of Indian &c. The river continued to be crouded with Islands, Sholey rapid & clear; I could not walk on shore to day as my ankle was Sore from a tumer on that part. The method we are compelled to take to get on is fatigueing & laborious in the extreen, haul the Canoes over the rapids, which Suckceed each other every two or three hundred yards and between the water rapid oblige [us] to towe & walke on stones the whole day except when we have poleing; men wet all day, Sore feet, &c, &c.”
———————William Clark
Monday August 5th 1805
The river today [Capt Clark] found streighter and more rapid even than yesterday, and the labour and difficulty of the navigation was proportionably increased; they therefore proceeded but slowly and with great pain as the men had become very languid from working in the water and many of their feet swolen and so painfull that they could scarcely walk. At 4 p.m. they arrived at the confluence of the two rivers where I had left [another] note. This note had unfortunately been placed on a green pole which the beaver had cut and carried off together with the note; the possibility of such an occurrence never onc occurred to me when I placed it on the green pole. This accedent deprived Capt Clark of any information with ripect to the country, and supposing that the rapid fork was most in the direction which it was proper we should pursue, or West, he took that stream and asscended it with much difficulty about a mile and encamped on an islandthat had been lately overflown and was yet damp; they were therefore compelled to make beds of brush to keep themselves out of the mud. in ascending this stream for about a quarter of a mile, it scattered in such a manner that they were obliged to cut a passage through willow brush which leant over the little channels and united their tops.”
———————-Meriwether Lewis
From The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition
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“Above its junction with the Madison, the Jefferson wanders, staggers, and crankles, flushing half its waters askew, the other awry, and throughout its upper and lower miles manifests little urge to go anywhere other than sideways; when it’s not hunting a new route or sending one channel off in search of two others, it will flow properly just long enough to fool a boatman. In short, it is the little Jefferson that puts the mischief into the big Missouri, and, like its descendant, it seems always to ask ‘Where am I?’ although it stays not for an answer.”
———————William Least Heat-Moon, “River-Horse” c1999
