AFRICA
The Danakil Diary: Journeys through Abyssinia, 1930-4 (Wilfred Thesiger,
1996)
Thesiger travelled
for three decades from 1930 as an explorer, military career and historian in
Arabia and Africa - but it was not until the 1960s that he started to set
down his stories in print. Perhaps the best known is his first, Arabian
Sands, which dealt with the Bedouin life in what is now Oman's Empty
Quarter.
But in 1996, seven years before his death, he published The Danakil Diary,
which covered his trip more than six decades earlier to Abyssinia (now
Ethiopa), in search of the source of the Hawash River. As was reported in The
Times in November, 1934, not only was the expedition successful, but
Thesiger collected "much valuable information" about the country -
bringing back 880 specimens of birds.
The report of his presentation to The Royal Geographical Society continued: "The
exploration of the Dankali country has always been handicapped by. the
savage disposition of the inhabitants, and only in Aussa, where the Sultan
rules with an iron hand, are peace and security to be found. Mr.Thesiger was
well received by this ruler, and in his lecture he dealt with the Sultanate
of Aussa in some detail...."
The beauty of the book is that it can be accompanied by four
contemporaneous articles that ran in The Times in the summer of 1934. Thanks
to the Times Archive, we are now able to link through to the original
dispatches:
July
31, 1934
"Much of the mystery surrounding the "disappearance " of the
Hawash River in the Aussa Sultanate of Abyssinia was cleared up on a recent
expedition when I followed the river along its entire course through Badhu
and Aussa. I was the first white man ever to traverse the Aussa Sultanate...."
August
1, 1934
"At dawn on the fourth day I had an unforgettable view of towering
mountains, very distant but just touched by the rising sun, mountains of
whose existence I had heard no word..."
August
2, 1934
"On returning to my camp I found a present of four bulls and quantities
of milk and ghee. Throughout my stay in Aussa I received a most lavish
hospitality and daily oxen and sheep, milk, and dutrrah bread were brought
into my camp as presents from the Sultan..."
August
3, 1934
"The Dankalis from Aussa fetch the salt from these plains, which are
several miles across, and trade it with the Abyssinians on the plateau,
where, in the form of bars, it passes as currency. Only along the
south-eastern shore is there no salt, for here hot salt water pours out from
tunnels under the sandstone cliff..."
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Times Archive
