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Livingstone's Cataract, by Robert Plummer

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Livingstone's Cataract, by Robert Plummer The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgementTown of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Cape Published by the University ofof Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University Livingstone’s Cataract Robert Plummer PLMROB006 A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Master of Arts in Creative Writing Faculty of the Humanities University of Cape Town 2011 This work has not been previously submitted in whole, or in part, for the award of any degree. It is my own work. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in, this dissertation from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed,Town and has been cited and referenced. Signature: CapeDate: of University Abstract In January 1860, the painter Thomas Baines returned to Cape Town in disgrace, having been dismissed from David Livingstone’s expedition to explore the Kebrabasa rapids on the Zambesi River. Livingstone’s Cataract is a historical novel that follows Baines’s involvement with the expedition. It is written from Baines’s point of view, in the first person. The novel traces the problems that the party faced: from their struggle to find a way through the river delta to the inadequacies of their steamer; from the war that was raging between the Portuguese authorities and rebel prazeros to intense conflicts between the members of the expedition; from the malaria that beset them to the hostile environment that resisted their attempts to map or navigate. Underlying these troubles is the fraught relationship between Baines and Livingstone, and their ultimate falling out. Livingstone’s Cataract is based on meticulous historical research, closely following events as recorded in journals, letters, dispatches, reports, newspapers, books, maps, photographs and paintings. But it goes beyond these, filling in gaps where the historical record is scant, delving into more personal territory than Victorian history records, and serving the demands of novelistic and narrative conventions. The style follows closely the discourse of the time, and into Baines’s narrative are woven words and phrases from his journal, letters and other writings. Drawing from history, the novel demonstrates the way in which the historical record is constructed, manipulated and imposed on reality. Town Cape of University Livingstone’s Cataract Being an account by Thomas Baines of his tenure with the Expedition of Dr David Livingstone to the Zambezi River in 1858 and 1859, to investigate the navigability of the Kebrabasa rapids Town Cape of University ROBERT PLUMMER Town Cape of University © Robert Plummer 2011 ii To Roddy McLennan, for the love of stories Town Cape of University iii Town Cape of University iv Contents Part I: The Voyage 1 Part II: The Launch 75 Part III: The River 165 Part IV: The Cataract 271 Part V: The Outpost 361 Part VI: The Falls 477 Acknowledgements 487 Town Cape of University v Town Cape of University vi It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye to a telescope. We know that this instrument has been perfected by the long-continued efforts of the highest human intellects; and we naturally infer that the eye has been formed by a somewhat analogous process. But may not this inference be presumptuous? Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of man? – Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1859 When sitting one day in the hut with Sekomi he was silent for some time and at length, looking steadfastly at me, he said, addressing me by the pompous title by which I was usually addressed, ‘I wish you could give me your eyes.’ I asked why. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘I like them.’ He remained quiet and thoughtful again, and then abruptly said, ‘You must give me medicine to change my heart, I want a heart like yours. Mine is always proud and angry, angry with people. It is very proud and very angry, always, always.’ – David Livingstone, letter to James MacLehose, 28 May 1842 Town Cape of University vii Town Cape of University viii PART I THE VOYAGE Dear Emma I have been busy writing and preparing a skeleton chart with latitude and longitude and the outline of Africa leaving the rest blank to lay down our work upon. – Thomas Baines, letter to his sister Emma Elliott, 18 January 1858 Town Cape of University 1 1 Cape Town, January 1860 Find me a man who would hear ill spoken of Dr Livingstone: there are none. Even my friends look upon me awkwardly. This is not the story they wanted to hear. It is not the story I wanted to tell. When I was carried off the Lynx, the ship that brought me from the Zambesi, and me alone, Williams was there to meet me, his eyes brimming with concern but unable to meet mine. ‘My friend, my friend, I came as soon as I heard…’ A blanket around my shoulders, the journey into town had the quality of a dream, the liquid motion of the coach after days at sea, the strange sight of things familiar: street poles, post boxes, men in suits going about their business, and above all the flat-topped redoubt of Table Mountain, announcing to me that I was home, though there was nothing welcome in it. At Williams’s homestead, his young wife bustled me into theTown guestroom with an anguished expression. ‘Oh Thomas, what has happened to you?’ She hovered for a moment in the doorway, then left. Sleep came the instant she closed the door. But I find no peace. Drifting between restless sleep and quivering wakefulness, for days I see them: a headless body lying before me,Cape alligators drifting across the water, the rocks that reach out of the river and go up forever,of plumed native warriors snapping their bodies in a fearsome war dance, the jeering laughter, the accusations, calling me a thief and liar. I come to, in this little room, at all hours of the day or night. Sometimes Williams is here, his bushy eyebrows pressed together above his spectacles, sometimes his wife, humming a child’s song as she mops my forehead with a wet cloth. Other faces appear at my bedside, althoughUniversity I’m not always sure which are real. Last night it was my mother, though she is in England, resting her hand on mine and assuring me that everything will be all right. Dr Kirk has come to me, with his medicines, though he remains on the Zambesi. Then it is Williams again, telling me to rest, to be still, that I have been shouting in my sleep. At other times I find myself alone. And then, as I become properly awake, and my eyes begin to take in the plastered walls and the patterned ceiling and the textured cotton curtains, and my ears the sound of the city outside, it comes to me, the hard nub, the reason I am here: I have been dismissed. Dismissed from Dr Livingstone’s expedition. A 2 thief and a liar – the voices accuse me still, and I wish to return to the nightmares and be spared from this cold, hard disgrace. Williams has been most kind, and Mrs Williams most hospitable. They bring me dinners on a tray, and newspapers, with notices of parliamentary debates and auctions and agricultural shows. Now that I am becoming myself again, though I am still weak, I notice something that, remarkably, has escaped my attention. Mrs Williams is heavy with child. Two months, they tell me, give or take a week or two. Husband and wife stand beside each other, unable to disguise their pride, or their pity. We are the same age, Williams and I. The life of a harbour clerk seems to be doing him good. Other friends have come to visit, speaking softly and not asking, yet, to be told what has happened. I offer no explanations, waiting, as I am, for my strength to return, or for news, perhaps, from the interior. The newspaper beside my bed is folded in a way that shows, halfway down the page, a list of bankruptcies, three fellows whose misfortune fits into a narrow column of print, not worth much thought, but I find myself wondering, as I wouldTown not have done before, what the story is that lies behind it. I used to think of this as the other side of the world, this Cape of Good Hope. But it’s not. There was an age, long ago, when it was still wild, and dangerous, but not any more. It is impossible to imagine, like trying to think ofCape a time before chocolate, or coffee, or the potato. of Not the Zambesi. It’s not very far on the map, and only a fortnight away, by ship – but so removed. It may as well exist in a different time. It’s not connected, as the Cape is – although that of course is what we were trying to do: to navigate the Zambesi, and open the interior to civilization. That was the plan. Those days, at the beginning, they seem a world even more distant than that. England was ablaze with Livingstone.University It was all Livingstone. Everyone was talking about his great journey; everyone had read his book. Was any man more famous than he? To meet him, to be chosen to go on his next expedition … The feeling I had, when I received the news – I find it impossible to describe it now.
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