Through Western Madagascar in Quest of the Golden Bean Walter D Marcuse Books
Download As PDF : Through Western Madagascar in Quest of the Golden Bean Walter D Marcuse Books
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Through Western Madagascar in Quest of the Golden Bean Walter D Marcuse Books
Through Western Madagascar by Walter MarcuseThis book, originally published in 1914, is subtitled `In quest of the golden bean' but the bean is happily forgotten during most of this narrative. Instead we have a ripping yarn of an explorer's adventures. Walter Marcuse recounts how, at the earnest request of some villagers, he shot a crocodile who regularly ate their children and then played them his gramophone at their celebratory feast. They were particularly taken with Harry Lauder's `Stop your tickling, Jock', and were convinced that the sound was created by the spirits of all the crocodiles he had killed. The book has many photographs, which prove that Marcuse did not stay at home in Surrey and make it all up. He can show us the dead 16 foot crocodile. And that jungle vegetation! Quite unlike that of Caterham Valley as far I as recall it.
One night, travelling alone with his native crew, he had to fight off an attack by them, when they had decided to kill him for his guns and money. Forewarned by a native girl whom he had earlier helped by removing a splinter from her eye (using his ornithologist's equipment), he waited up for them, and when he saw them coming he fired his Mauser:
`The shot, by a lucky chance, carried away the broad prongs of a fish-spear that the leader carried in his right hand, and so absolutely taken by surprise were the cowardly gang that they promptly fled'.
But the book is more than a yarn as Marcuse has an insatiable curiosity about the ways of the native tribes and an ability to communicate with them - he had studied the main language, though his empathy is more important than his linguistic skill. He may disapprove of some of their customs - for example, any child born on a Tuesday or Friday has to be left out for some time in the jungle to be cleansed - but he values each as an individual.
Marcuse also loves birds so much he has to shoot them to get a better view, as was the way in his times. Among the photographs in the book is one of an egg he found of the half ton, 10 ft tall Elephant bird, sadly hunted to extinction by the islanders many years before. There remained many interesting insects, but some of those he might have preferred to do without:
`I conceived a lively horror of a vicious and venomous centipede of huge dimensions, which is gifted with a positive instinct for emerging from unexpected places; and on one occasion, a particularly atrocious member of this species crept out of the lining of my helmet after I had placed it on my head'.
If his adventures sounds like Stevenson, it is Conrad that comes to mind when he describes the French colonists. The colony was in the doldrums: the basic mistake was to have granted a banking monopoly, which meant that traders were charged excessive interest and few installed themselves. Sunk in torpor, prey to tropical diseases, the colonists were losing their grip on reality. He was travelling with one, a Marquis, in an overloaded canoe which was in imminent danger of sinking in the surf on a reef. The Marquis pleaded that whatever desperate measures might be taken, the fish they had caught should not be thrown out `think what a bouillabaisse we would miss'. But there was none of the inhumanity that Conrad witnessed in the Belgian Congo. The French had something the natives wanted - red wine - and they were willing to barter their crops for it. The wine was sold at `west end prices,' but there was a willing exchange.
And the golden bean? In those days they were beginning to cultivate Phaseolus lunatus which is like a butter bean with purple spots. Marcuse thought the spots should be bred out of it to make it `golden', and more acceptable. But despite keeping its spots it is doing well and is now extensively grown in Madagascar and many are exported to Europe.
Those who want to learn about Madagascar today should look elsewhere, but this book is delightful as an adventure in the past, as if in a time machine. And English readers have reason to be proud, as everywhere Marcuse found the natives were glad to see an Englishman instead of the usual French. Marcuse wondered if they could really tell the difference. Oh yes, they told him: your hats are far superior. Even the venemous centipede recognised that.
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Through Western Madagascar in Quest of the Golden Bean Walter D Marcuse Books Reviews
Through Western Madagascar by Walter Marcuse
This book, originally published in 1914, is subtitled `In quest of the golden bean' but the bean is happily forgotten during most of this narrative. Instead we have a ripping yarn of an explorer's adventures. Walter Marcuse recounts how, at the earnest request of some villagers, he shot a crocodile who regularly ate their children and then played them his gramophone at their celebratory feast. They were particularly taken with Harry Lauder's `Stop your tickling, Jock', and were convinced that the sound was created by the spirits of all the crocodiles he had killed. The book has many photographs, which prove that Marcuse did not stay at home in Surrey and make it all up. He can show us the dead 16 foot crocodile. And that jungle vegetation! Quite unlike that of Caterham Valley as far I as recall it.
One night, travelling alone with his native crew, he had to fight off an attack by them, when they had decided to kill him for his guns and money. Forewarned by a native girl whom he had earlier helped by removing a splinter from her eye (using his ornithologist's equipment), he waited up for them, and when he saw them coming he fired his Mauser
`The shot, by a lucky chance, carried away the broad prongs of a fish-spear that the leader carried in his right hand, and so absolutely taken by surprise were the cowardly gang that they promptly fled'.
But the book is more than a yarn as Marcuse has an insatiable curiosity about the ways of the native tribes and an ability to communicate with them - he had studied the main language, though his empathy is more important than his linguistic skill. He may disapprove of some of their customs - for example, any child born on a Tuesday or Friday has to be left out for some time in the jungle to be cleansed - but he values each as an individual.
Marcuse also loves birds so much he has to shoot them to get a better view, as was the way in his times. Among the photographs in the book is one of an egg he found of the half ton, 10 ft tall Elephant bird, sadly hunted to extinction by the islanders many years before. There remained many interesting insects, but some of those he might have preferred to do without
`I conceived a lively horror of a vicious and venomous centipede of huge dimensions, which is gifted with a positive instinct for emerging from unexpected places; and on one occasion, a particularly atrocious member of this species crept out of the lining of my helmet after I had placed it on my head'.
If his adventures sounds like Stevenson, it is Conrad that comes to mind when he describes the French colonists. The colony was in the doldrums the basic mistake was to have granted a banking monopoly, which meant that traders were charged excessive interest and few installed themselves. Sunk in torpor, prey to tropical diseases, the colonists were losing their grip on reality. He was travelling with one, a Marquis, in an overloaded canoe which was in imminent danger of sinking in the surf on a reef. The Marquis pleaded that whatever desperate measures might be taken, the fish they had caught should not be thrown out `think what a bouillabaisse we would miss'. But there was none of the inhumanity that Conrad witnessed in the Belgian Congo. The French had something the natives wanted - red wine - and they were willing to barter their crops for it. The wine was sold at `west end prices,' but there was a willing exchange.
And the golden bean? In those days they were beginning to cultivate Phaseolus lunatus which is like a butter bean with purple spots. Marcuse thought the spots should be bred out of it to make it `golden', and more acceptable. But despite keeping its spots it is doing well and is now extensively grown in Madagascar and many are exported to Europe.
Those who want to learn about Madagascar today should look elsewhere, but this book is delightful as an adventure in the past, as if in a time machine. And English readers have reason to be proud, as everywhere Marcuse found the natives were glad to see an Englishman instead of the usual French. Marcuse wondered if they could really tell the difference. Oh yes, they told him your hats are far superior. Even the venemous centipede recognised that.
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