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West with the Night
by Beryl Markham
by Beryl Markham
As a pilot and a traveler to Africa myself, I read this book with interest. I was prepared for an exciting travelogue concerning subjects with which I had some commerce. What I was not prepared for was the prose, which flowed like a great river: powerful, subtle, perfectly apt, and remarkably unselfconscious, to wit:
"Africa is never the same to anyone who leaves it and returns again. It is not a land of change, but it is a land of moods and its moods are numberless. It is not fickle, but because it has mothered not only men, but races, and cradled not only cities, but civilizations -- and seen them die, and see new ones born again -- Africa can be dispassionate, indifferent, warm, or cynical, replete with the weariness of too much wisdom.
"Today Africa may seem to be that ever-promised land, almost achieved; but tomorrow it may be a dark land again, drawn into itself, contemptuous, and impatient with the futility of eager men who have scrambled over it since the experiment of Eden. In the family of continents, Africa is the silent, booding sister, courted for centuries by knight-errant empires -- rejecting them one by one and severally, because she is too sage and a little bored with the importunity of it all.
"Imperious Carthage must have once looked upon Africa as its own province, its future empire, and the sons of the Romans who destroyed that hope, and are today no longer Romans, have retreated with a step rather less firm than Caesar's over routes that knew the rumble of calvary long before Christ.
"All nations lay claim to Africa, but none has wholly possessed her yet. In time she will be taken, yielding... to integrity equal to her own and to wisdom capable of understanding her wisdom and of discerning between wealth and fulfillment. Africa is less a wilderness than a repository of primary and fundamental values, and less a barbaric land than an unfamiliary voice. Barbarism, however bright its trappings, is still alien to her heart."
To which I add my own feeble praise: read "West with the Night." You will never be the same.
"Africa is never the same to anyone who leaves it and returns again. It is not a land of change, but it is a land of moods and its moods are numberless. It is not fickle, but because it has mothered not only men, but races, and cradled not only cities, but civilizations -- and seen them die, and see new ones born again -- Africa can be dispassionate, indifferent, warm, or cynical, replete with the weariness of too much wisdom.
"Today Africa may seem to be that ever-promised land, almost achieved; but tomorrow it may be a dark land again, drawn into itself, contemptuous, and impatient with the futility of eager men who have scrambled over it since the experiment of Eden. In the family of continents, Africa is the silent, booding sister, courted for centuries by knight-errant empires -- rejecting them one by one and severally, because she is too sage and a little bored with the importunity of it all.
"Imperious Carthage must have once looked upon Africa as its own province, its future empire, and the sons of the Romans who destroyed that hope, and are today no longer Romans, have retreated with a step rather less firm than Caesar's over routes that knew the rumble of calvary long before Christ.
"All nations lay claim to Africa, but none has wholly possessed her yet. In time she will be taken, yielding... to integrity equal to her own and to wisdom capable of understanding her wisdom and of discerning between wealth and fulfillment. Africa is less a wilderness than a repository of primary and fundamental values, and less a barbaric land than an unfamiliary voice. Barbarism, however bright its trappings, is still alien to her heart."
To which I add my own feeble praise: read "West with the Night." You will never be the same.
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