Travels in Southern Africa, Vol. 2 (review)

Abstract

Perhaps the most telling moment in this book occurs when Adulphe Delegorgue, having set sail on a British ship from Cape Town to London in 1844, visits St. Helena. There, midway between the two continents of his adult life, Africa and Europe, Delegorgue sees the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte and describes his compatriot as the "colossus of glory" (284). Through his homage to Napoleon some twenty years after his death, Delegorgue fixes his historical moment and identifies the model by which he fashioned his persona as intrepid explorer, great white hunter, meticulous naturalist (remembered in the names of various species including a type of butterfly, Lycaena Delegorguei), and lover of animals. In this self-depiction, Delegorgue is above all a man of destiny who lives the "dangerous life" (213) and savors the freedom offered by southern Africa, unlike the colonial Boers and English whom he sees as hopelessly unimaginative and domesticated. The Boers are slightly superior to the English, he admits, but only because they were unmatched as oxen-drivers and were not the persecutors of Napoleon.