West with the Night

by Beryl Markham

There were roads, of course, leading in a dozen directions out of Nairobi. They started out boldly enough, but grew narrow and rough after a few miles and dwindled into the rock-studded hills, or lost themselves in a morass of red muram mud or black cotton soil, in the flat country and the valleys.

There were roads. They started boldly enough

Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer’s paradise, a hunter’s Valhalla, an escapist’s Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one.

Africa is…

to fly in unbroken darkness without even the cold companionship of a pair of ear-phones or the knowledge that somewhere ahead are lights and life and a well-marked airport is something more than just lonely. It is at times unreal to the point where the existence of other people seems not even a reasonable probability. The

Instrument.flying in Africa

For all professional pilots there exists a kind of guild, without charter and without by-laws. It demands no requirements for inclusion save an understanding of the wind, the compass, the rudder, and fair fellowship.

Fellowship of pilots

But there was no Woody.

Finds Plane but but not Woody

resent being treated like a corpse,’ he said. ‘It’s insulting. Is there anything to eat?’

I resent being treated like a corpse

‘So,’ he scolded, ‘now it has come to this. To walk is not enough. To ride on a horse is not enough. Now people must go from place to place through the air,

To walk, to ride: it is not.enough. now you must use the air

was within twenty yards of the Elkington lion before I saw him. He lay sprawled in the morning sun, huge, black-maned, and gleaming with life. His tail moved slowly, stroking the rough grass like a knotted rope end.

I was within 20 yards of the lion before i saw him

scream that was barely a whisper, a blow that struck me to the ground, and, as I buried my face in my arms and felt Paddy’s teeth close on the flesh of my leg,

a fantastically bobbing turban, that was Bishon Singh’s turban appear over the edge of the hill.

Remember A blow knocking her to ground, the lion sinking its teeth in her legs, and the servant's turban

The sound of Paddy’s roar in my ears will only be duplicated, I think, when the doors of hell slip their wobbly hinges,

The lion's roar only will be duplicated if the gates of hell open

‘The lion deserted you for the Bwana, Beru. The lion was of the opinion that his master was not in any honest way deserving of a portion of what he, the lion, had accomplished in the matter of fresh meat through no effort by anybody except himself.’

Rushed the lion, which thought Buwana was trying to poach his capture

curdling to fury at the sight of this vain mop of gaudy feathers committing forgery of the master’s voice — insulting all of dogdom with the cheek of it, holding to ridicule the canine clan, promising even (what could be worse?) a scrap, or a bone, yet giving nothing!

Insult of a bird pretending to be its master

am a trainer of race-horses, I have already got my licence. Six weeks to the Race Meeting at Nairobi

I am a trainer of race horses

Kibii into Arab Ruta — Beru into Memsahib! — this stilted word that ends my youth and reminds me always of its ending — What a child does not know and does not want to know of race and colour and class, he learns soon enough as he grows to see each man flipped inexorably into some predestined groove like a penny or a sovereign in a banker’s rack. Kibii, the Nandi boy, was my good friend. Arab Ruta, who sits before me, is my good friend, but the handclasp will be shorter, the smile will not be so eager on his lips, and though the path is for a while the same, he will walk behind me now, when once, in the simplicity of our nonage, we walked together. No, my friend, I have not learned more than this. Nor in all these years have I met many who have learned as much.

Learning Race and class

Africa people learn to serve each other. They live on credit balances of little favours that they give and may, one day, ask to have returned.

In Africa, people learn to serve each other

He had been lavish with a stranger. He had left me a word, tossed me a key to a door I never knew was there, and had still to find. ‘All the pieces are put together, and the whole is yours …’ A word grows to a thought — a thought to an idea — an idea to an act. The change is slow, and the Present is a sluggish traveller loafing in the path Tomorrow wants to take.

Meeting a stranger wo mentioned aeroplanes changed her life in a word

I see her sweep the final furlong on swollen legs, forging ahead, feeding him the dust of her hooves.

Horse race between two horses she trained

‘She didn’t just win,’ Eric says; ‘she broke the Leger record.’

Broke the speed record

‘but I know you’ll agree that no matter how much money we could make with Wise Child, she deserves never to race again.’ And she never does.

No matter how much money we could make with Wise Child, she's earned the right never to raced again

Death will have his moment of respect, however he comes along, and no matter upon what living thing he lays his hand.

Death will have its moment of respect

He said, ‘If it is to be that we must fly, Memsahib, then we will fly. At what hour of the morning do we begin?’

If we are to fly, at what hour shall we begin?

‘Instruments can go wrong,’ he said. ‘If you can’t fly without looking at your airspeed and your altimeter and your bank-and-turn indicator — well, then you can’t fly. You’re like somebody who only knows what he thinks after reading his newspaper.

You cant fly by reading the guages. Only the compass should be trusted

‘White men pay for danger — we poor ones cannot afford it.

White men pay for danger. We poor can't afford it.

had never realized before how quickly men deteriorate without razors and clean shirts. They are like potted plants that go to weed unless they are pruned and tended daily.

I never realized how quickly men go to seed without a razor

A map says to you, ‘Read me carefully, follow me closely, doubt me not.’ It says, ‘I am the earth in the palm of your hand. Without me, you are alone and lost.’

A map says to you

‘An aviator who shows an interest in our fortresses is guilty of espionage, and one who does not is guilty of disrespect.’ I think the latter crime was, of the two, the more repugnant to the legionnaires

An aviators who shows interest in our forts is a guilty of being a spy; no interest: guilty of disrespect

‘and in case you haven’t noticed it, this is a brothel. She runs it.’ ‘Oh.’

In case you hadn't noticed, thos is a brothel

The abhorrence of loneliness is as natural as wanting to live at all. If it were otherwise, men would never have bothered to make an alphabet, nor to have fashioned words out of what were only animal sounds, nor to have crossed continents — each man to see what the other looked like.

The abhorrence of loneliness

We are bound for a place thirty-six hundred miles from here — two thousand miles of it unbroken ocean. Most of the way it will be night. We are flying west with the night.’

West with the night

The fear is gone now — not overcome nor reasoned away. It is gone because something else has taken its place; the confidence and the trust,

Fear is gone, replaced by confidence abd trust