



Produced by Aaron Cannon





THE LAND OF FOOTPRINTS

by Stewart Edward White

1913




I. ON BOOKS OF ADVENTURE

Books of sporting, travel, and adventure in countries little known to
the average reader naturally fall in two classes-neither, with a very
few exceptions, of great value. One class is perhaps the logical result
of the other.

Of the first type is the book that is written to make the most of far
travels, to extract from adventure the last thrill, to impress the
awestricken reader with a full sense of the danger and hardship the
writer has undergone. Thus, if the latter takes out quite an ordinary
routine permit to go into certain districts, he makes the most of
travelling in "closed territory," implying that he has obtained an
especial privilege, and has penetrated where few have gone before him.
As a matter of fact, the permit is issued merely that the authorities
may keep track of who is where. Anybody can get one. This class of
writer tells of shooting beasts at customary ranges of four and five
hundred yards. I remember one in especial who airily and as a matter
of fact killed all his antelope at such ranges. Most men have shot
occasional beasts at a quarter mile or so, but not airily nor as
a matter of fact: rather with thanksgiving and a certain amount of
surprise. The gentleman of whom I speak mentioned getting an eland at
seven hundred and fifty yards. By chance I happened to mention this to a
native Africander.

"Yes," said he, "I remember that; I was there."

This interested me-and I said so.

"He made a long shot," said I.

"A GOOD long shot," replied the Africander.

"Did you pace the distance?"

He laughed. "No," said he, "the old chap was immensely delighted. 'Eight
hundred yards if it was an inch!' he cried."

"How far was it?"

"About three hundred and fifty. But it was a long shot, all right."

And it was! Three hundred and fifty yards is a very long shot. It is
over four city blocks-New York size. But if you talk often enough and
glibly enough of "four and five hundred yards," it does not sound like
much, does it?

The same class of writer always gets all the thrills. He speaks of
"blanched cheeks," of the "thrilling suspense," and so on down the gamut
of the shilling shocker. His stuff makes good reading; there is no
doubt of that. The spellbound public likes it, and to that extent it has
fulfilled its mission. Also, the reader believes it to the letter-why
should he not? Only there is this curious result: he carries away in
his mind the impression of unreality, of a country impossible to
be understood and gauged and savoured by the ordinary human mental
equipment. It is interesting, just as are historical novels, or the
copper-riveted heroes of modern fiction, but it has no real relation
with human life. In the last analysis the inherent untruth of the
thing forces itself on him. He believes, but he does not apprehend; he
acknowledges the fact, but he cannot grasp its human quality. The affair
is interesting, but it is more or less concocted of pasteboard for his
amusement. Thus essential truth asserts its right.

All this, you must understand, is probably not a deliberate attempt
to deceive. It is merely the recrudescence under the stimulus of a
brand-new environment of the boyish desire to be a hero. When a man
jumps back into the Pleistocene he digs up some of his ancestors'
cave-qualities. Among these is the desire for personal adornment. His
modern development of taste precludes skewers in the ears and polished
wire around the neck; so he adorns himself in qualities instead. It is
quite an engaging and diverting trait of character. The attitude of mind
it both presupposes and helps to bring about is too complicated for my
brief analysis. In itself it is no more blameworthy than the small boy's
pretence at Indians in the back yard; and no more praiseworthy than
infantile decoration with feathers.

In its results, however, we are more concerned. Probably each of us has
his mental picture that passes as a symbol rather than an idea of the
different continents. This is usually a single picture-a deep river,
with forest, hanging snaky vines, anacondas and monkeys for the east
coast of South America, for example. It is built up in youth by chance
reading and chance pictures, and does as well as a pink place on the
map to stand for a part of the world concerning which we know nothing at
all. As time goes on we extend, expand, and modify this picture in the
light of what knowledge we may acquire. So the reading of many books
modifies and expands our first crude notions of Equatorial Africa. And
the result is, if we read enough of the sort I describe above, we build
the idea of an exciting, dangerous, extra-human continent, visited by
half-real people of the texture of the historical-fiction hero, who have
strange and interesting adventures which we could not possibly imagine
happening to ourselves.

This type of book is directly responsible for the