Heinrich Barth
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
HEINRICH BARTH “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Heinrich Barth HDT WHAT? INDEX HEINRICH BARTH HEINRICH BARTH 1821 February 16, Friday: Heinrich Barth was born in Hamburg. Publication of the Piano Concerto op.85 by Johann Nepomuk Hummel was announced in the Wiener Zeitung. John Scott, the editor of London Magazine, had accused Blackwood’s Magazine of libel. A representative of the journal, J.H. Christie, had challenged Scott to a duel. Scott had accepted, and in this case “the sword proved to be mightier than the pen” — the editor would die of his wounds. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Heinrich Barth “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX HEINRICH BARTH HEINRICH BARTH 1844 Heinrich Barth graduated from the University of Berlin. His dissertation was CORINTHIORUM COMMERCII ET MERCATURAE HISTORIAE PARTICULA / BEITRÄGE ZUR GESCHICHTE VON HANDEL UND HANDELSVERKEHR DER KORINTHER. Among his professors had been Alexander von Humboldt, Leopold von Ranke, Friedrich von Schelling, and Jakob Grimm. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Heinrich Barth HDT WHAT? INDEX HEINRICH BARTH HEINRICH BARTH 1845 After studying Arabic in London, Heinrich Barth began his travels in North Africa. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Heinrich Barth HDT WHAT? INDEX HEINRICH BARTH HEINRICH BARTH 1847 From Tangier Heinrich Barth had made his way overland throughout the length of North Africa. He had ascended the Nile to Wadi Halfa and crossed the desert to Berenice. He had traversed the Sinai peninsula into Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Turkey and Greece. At this point he arrived back in Berlin and took employment as a Privatdozent while preparing his account WANDERUNGEN DURCH DIE KÜSTENLÄNDER DES MITTELMEERES. THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Heinrich Barth HDT WHAT? INDEX HEINRICH BARTH HEINRICH BARTH 1849 Heinrich Barth’s WANDERUNGEN DURCH DIE KÜSTENLÄNDER DES MITTELMEERES. HDT WHAT? INDEX HEINRICH BARTH HEINRICH BARTH 1850 The British Foreign Office had asked Heinrich Barth and a Prussian astronomer, Adolf Overweg, to accompany James Richardson, an explorer of the Sahara whom they were tasking to open up commercial relations with the states of the central and western Sudan. Early in this year the party left Tripoli, but Richardson would die during March 1851 and Overweg during September 1852, leaving Barth to complete the mission alone. HDT WHAT? INDEX HEINRICH BARTH HEINRICH BARTH February 8, Friday: Frederick Douglass attacked the Missouri Compromise: NO! In North Africa, Heinrich Barth viewed Wadi Welad Ali. HDT WHAT? INDEX HEINRICH BARTH HEINRICH BARTH February 10, Sunday: In North Africa, Heinrich Barth viewed Kano. April 8, Monday: In North Africa, Heinrich Barth viewed Mizda. HDT WHAT? INDEX HEINRICH BARTH HEINRICH BARTH April 26, Friday: In North Africa, Heinrich Barth viewed Ederli. Eventually, when his account of this would arrive at Stacy’s Circulating Library in Concord, Henry David Thoreau would be reading about this, and looking at this picture. Thoreau checked out, from Harvard Library, the translation by the Reverend J. Stephenson of THE SANHITA OF THE SAMA VEDA, and Rammohan Roy’s collection of extracts from the early vedas titled TRANSLATION OF SEVERAL PRINCIPAL BOOKS, PASSAGES, AND TEXTS OF THE VEDS, AND OF SOME CONTROVERSIAL WORKS ON INDIA HDT WHAT? INDEX HEINRICH BARTH HEINRICH BARTH BRAHMUNICAL THEOLOGY. Thoreau also checked out William Galbraith, M.A.’s MATHEMATICAL AND ASTRONOMICAL TABLES: FOR THE USE OF STUDENTS IN MATHEMATICS, PRACTICAL ASTRONOMERS, SURVEYORS, ENGINEERS, AND NAVIGATORS; PRECEDED BY AN INTRODUCTION, CONTAINING THE CONSTRUCTION OF LOGARITHMIC AND TRIGONOMETRICAL TABLES, PLANE AND SPHERICAL TRIGONOMETRY, THEIR APPLICATION TO NAVIGATION, ASTRONOMY, SURVEYING, AND GEODETICAL OPERATIONS, WITH AN EXPLANATION OF THE TABLES, ILLUSTRATED BY NUMEROUS PROBLEMS AND EXAMPLES ... (2d Edition, greatly enlarged and improved; Edinburgh: Published by Oliver & Boyd, Tweeddale Court; Simpkin & Marshall, and J.W. Norie & Co., London. 1834). WM. GALBRAITH’S TABLES April 1850: The Hindoos are more serenely and thoughtfully religious than the Hebrews–they have HDT WHAT? INDEX HEINRICH BARTH HEINRICH BARTH perhaps a purer more independent and impersonal knowledge of God– Their religious books describe the first inquisitive & contemplative access to God–the Hebrew bible a conscientious return–a grosser & more personal repentance. Repentance is not a free & fair highway to God. A wise man will dispense with repentance– It is shocking & passionate. God prefers that you approach him thoughtful, not penitent, though you are the chief of sinners. It is only by forgetting yourself that you draw near to him. The calmness & gentleness with which the Hindoo philosophers approach & discourse on forbidden themes is admirable What extracts from the vedas I have read fall on me like the light of a higher & purer luminary which describes a loftier curve through a purer stratum–free from particulars–simple–universal– It rises on me like the full moon after the stars have come out wading through some far summer stratum of the sky. The Vedant teaches how “by forsaking religious rites” the votary may “obtain purification of mind.” One wise sentence is worth the state of Massachusetts, many times over. The Vedas contain a sensible account of God. The religion & phil. of the Hebrews are those of a wilder & ruder tribe–wanting the civility & intellectual refinements & subtlety of the Hindoos. Man flows at once to God as soon as the channel of purity, physical, intellectual & moral, is open. with the Hindoos virtue is an intellectual exercise–not a social & practical one– It is a knowing not a doing. I do not prefer one religion or philosophy to another– I have no sympathy with the bigotry & ignorance which make transient & partial & puerile distinctions between one man’s faith or form of faith & anothers–as christian & heathen– I pray to be delivered from narrowness partiality exaggeration–bigotry. To the philosopher all sects all nations are alike. I like Brahma–Hare Buddha–the Great spirit as well as God. May: In North Africa, Heinrich Barth viewed Murzuk. HDT WHAT? INDEX HEINRICH BARTH HEINRICH BARTH July 7, Sunday: In North Africa, Heinrich Barth viewed Telisaghe. July 29, Tuesday: In North Africa, Heinrich Barth viewed Egeri. Henry Thoreau wrote to Charles Sumner in Springfield. Springfield Depot noon July 29 th 1850. Dear Sir, HDT WHAT? INDEX HEINRICH BARTH HEINRICH BARTH I left Fire Island Beach on Saturday between nine & ten o'clock A.M. The same morning I saw on the beach, four or five miles west of the wreck, a portion of a human skeleton, which was found the day be- fore, probably from the Elizabeth, but I have not knowledge enough of anatomy to decide confidently, as many might, whether it was that of a male or a female. I therefore hired Selah Strong, Keeper of the Light, to bury it simply for the present, and mark the spot, leaving it to future events, or a trustworthy examination, to decide the ques- tion. Yrs in haste Henry D. Thoreau P.S. No more bodies had then been found. HDT WHAT? INDEX HEINRICH BARTH HEINRICH BARTH 1851 March: In the party of James Richardson, Heinrich Barth, and Adolf Overweg that had been tasked by the British Foreign Office to open up commercial relations with the states of the central and western Sudan, at this point Richardson died, leaving only Barth and Overweg to carry the project forward. DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. December 28, Sunday: In North Africa, Heinrich Barth viewed Musgu. December 28, Sunday: All day a drizzling rain – ever & anon holding up with driving mists– A January thaw– The snow rapidly dissolving, in all hollows a pond forming – unfathomable water beneath the snow. Went into Tommy Wheelers house – where still stands the spinning wheel and even the loom home made. Great pitch pine timbers overhead 15 or 16 inches in diameter – telling of the primitive forest here. The white pines look greener than usual in this gentle rain – and every needle has a drop at the end of it– There is a mist in the air which partially conceals them and they seem of a piece with it. Some one has cut a hole in the ice at Jenny’s Brook – and set a steel trap under water, and suspended a large piece of meat over it for a bait for a mink apparently. Heinrich Barth “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX HEINRICH BARTH HEINRICH BARTH December 31, Wednesday: In North Africa, Heinrich Barth viewed Ngaljam Demmo. Henry Thoreau observed the thawing sand/clay bank in the “Deep Cut” of the railroad leading to Walden Pond and for the first time linked it to his botanical studies. He saw “perfect leopard paws,” the springing forth of the earth, in the bank. “There is nothing inorganic.” Douglas R. Anderson, on page 309 of his A HOUSE UNDIVIDED, has pointed out in regard to Thoreau’s experience of the thawing railroad embankment “Deep Cut” on this day, that Thoreau here is not to be conceptualized as being in Nature’s cloaca, watching the formation of excrement, but in her womb, watching the formation of the forms of leaves, the forms of fingers, of the “great central life” to which “all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic.” If Thoreau the artist here is anything, Anderson points out, he is midwife, he is stationed at the deeply cleft portal through which new life emerges.1 1. Douglas R. Anderson. A HOUSE UNDIVIDED: DOMESTICITY AND COMMUNITY IN AMERICAN LITERATURE.