Books, Arts & Manners: Last of a Kind

No Man’s Land: The Last of White Africa, by John Heminway Dutton, 298 pp., $19.95 In the nineteenth century, and for much of the twentieth, the white man could claim he owned Africa. But though he imposed his government and, in many places, his beliefs and customs upon it, Africa was never in his possession. Nor would it, nor could it, possess him. Some men, however, loved Africa, not for the gain or the power it gave them, but for its unfathomable soul. They loved it for its beauty, for its people, and especially for its extraordinary animal life, the game that has fascinated Europeans and Americans for more than a hundred years.

This excellent book tells the stories of some of these men, the last of their kind, who have given themselves to Africa, though they knew all along they could never put down genuine roots or be anything but alien to the native Africans. Nor could they successfully weather the rise of the new African nations. They hailed Africa; and almost at once began a long farewell to it. That is why Africa is for them a no-man’s-land, a forbidden territory almost from the start.

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Nicholas King

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No Man’s Land: The Last of White Africa, by John Heminway Dutton, 298 pp., $19.95 In the nineteenth century, and for much of the twentieth, the white man could claim he owned Africa. But though he imposed his government and, in many places, his beliefs and customs upon it, Africa was never in his possession. Nor would it, nor could it, possess him. Some men, however, loved Africa, not for the gain or the power it gave them, but for its unfathomable soul. They loved it for its beauty, for its people, and especially for its extraordinary animal life, the game that has fascinated Europeans and Americans for more than a hundred years.

This excellent book tells the stories of some of these men, the last of their kind, who have given themselves to Africa, though they knew all along they could never put down genuine roots or be anything but alien to the native Africans. Nor could they successfully weather the rise of the new African nations. They hailed Africa; and almost at once began a long farewell to it. That is why Africa is for them a no-man’s-land, a forbidden territory almost from the start.