Crossing the Heart of Africa

Since I’d rather someone else risk his life so that I can then live vicariously in my armchair while I sip tea, I’m a sucker for adventure travel books. Consequently, I happily downloaded Crossing the Heart of Africa: An Odyssey of Love and Adventure, by Julian Smith, and soon found myself in South Africa contemplating the challenges of traveling through some of the most dangerous territory in the world.

The book is divided into two parts, with chapters alternating between an account of Ewart Grogan’s attempt in 1898 to be the first person to transect Africa length-wise, from Cape Town to Cairo, and Smith’s attempt a few years ago to recreate the feat. Both attempts were inspired by love.

After dropping out of Cambridge University and then fighting in one of the many colonial wars of South Africa, Grogan decided to recuperate in New Zealand, where he soon met and fell in love with Gertrude Watt. She was from a wealthy background, however, and her protective stepfather didn’t have much use for this soldier of fortune from a middle-class background. Grogan said that would earn the stepdaughter’s hand by doing something magnificent, which ended up being an offer to the Royal Geographical Society to survey previously uncharted territory in central Africa, which would necessitate traveling, by foot mainly but by canoe on occasion, from South Africa to Egypt.

Accompanied part of the way by Gertrude’s uncle and large party of porters to carry equipment, Grogan encountered monumental obstacles, including fierce wildlife, disease, and warring tribes. The uncle, severely afflicted by malaria and dysentery, soon quit, as did most of the porters, but Grogan struggled on with just a few native guides until he completed the journey and won his future wife. After a triumphant lecture tour around England, the two then settled in Kenya, where Grogan became an influential plantation owner.

Flash forward to 2007, a little more than hundred years after Grogan’s successful trip, and Julian Smith, a struggling writer who’s afraid to commit to the woman he loves, reads about the feat and resolves to duplicate it. He offers a marriage proposal on the condition that his girlfriend will allow him to make the trip, which will be approximately 4,500 miles long and take a few months by train, car, and boat. She agrees.

These autobiographical chapters, which alternate with chapters describing Grogan’s trip, describe Smith’s adventures as he travels through modern-day South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, and Egypt (he skips Sudan because of its constant warfare). Although he faced few of the genuine dangers that Grogan faced, Smith has a few heart-stopping escapades along the way.

If, like me, you prefer to read about adventure travel instead of actually doing adventure travel, then Crossing the Heart of Africa is for you.