* Although rubber had been described by previous explorers, Condamine was the first to give a scientific name to the tree that it came from and the first to bring samples back to Europe. It was of immediate interest to manufacturers. In the 19th century his discovery would create millionaires and alter the shape of empires.
* Six years later the authorities changed their minds and had the pyramids destroyed. They were restored in 1836 by the government of newly independent Ecuador.
* He had seen it practised in South America and was vaccinated against smallpox five years before the birth of Edward Jenner, who is credited with its discovery.
* Despite his expensive education, Banks had managed somehow to avoid the basics. His disdain for grammar, spelling and punctuation give his writings a magnificent immediacy.
* A national hero in France, this great explorer is immortalized in the name of a bright-flowered climber, native at that time only to Brazil. In fact it was Banks and Solander who found the plant and called it Calyxsis ternaria, but the name Bougainvillea stuck.
* At 94 per cent proof, Royal Navy rum was not to be taken lightly. The daily issue was a pint per man, half a pint for boys. Most sailors swore by it, claiming that it kept disease at bay.
* Ironically, once Antarctica had been discovered, north polar explorers of the early 20th century went in search of a northern continent to balance that of the south.
* James ‘Jem’ Burney, who had enlisted as an ordinary seaman, was the brother of the famous novelist and diarist, Fanny Burney.
* At first he was employed only as a consultant for the expedition but, faced with the Admiralty’s lengthy deliberations as to who should be the leader, Cook lost patience and said he would accept the post. The deliberations, and the decision, apparently involved several bottles of wine.
** Omai had been the exotic highlight of London’s season. Dressed in finery, he impressed everyone with his noble savagery. He was at ease with dukes, earls and admirals and, on being introduced to George III, addressed him as King Tosh. But when the novelty faded he was sent home. In a tawdry example of social engineering, he was given money, servants, muskets and fine clothes; Cook’s men also built him a house and dug him a garden. Thus equipped, Omai was meant to show the savages an example of true nobility. He died of fever shortly after his homecoming.
* Bligh was to achieve his own fame in 1787 when Banks sent him to Tahiti on the Bounty to collect breadfruit plants for transplantation in the West Indies. Two years later, his crew became so demoralized by his disciplinarian attitude that they put him overboard in a small boat and sailed, as some of Cook’s men would have liked to have done, for a paradisiacal existence with their Tahitian ‘wives’. In a stupendous act of seamanship Bligh steered his boat, and the 12 loyal men aboard it, on a 3,900-mile voyage to safety.
* The journey allowed Humboldt to study the cold Pacific current that now bears his name. He did not seek the honour. In his journal he called it the Peruvian Current, by which name it had always been known.
* It was Clark’s black slave, York, who was deemed to possess the greatest power. One husband went so far as to guard the door while York was inside with his wife. Throughout the journey he was considered a far greater marvel than the white men with their meagre gifts.
* The Europeans were taken aback by the men El Kanemi sent to fetch them. Anticipating a primitive rabble, they saw a disciplined body of cavalry whose swords, shields and chainmail gave them the appearance of a crusader army lost in time.
* Major Gordon Laing, who was currently heading for Timbuctoo via the Sahara, was outraged when he heard of Clapperton’s departure. ‘I smile at the idea of his reaching Timbuctoo before me. How can he expect it? Has he not already had the power? Has he not already thrown away the chance ... It is destined for me. It is due me, and [no] Clapperton can interfere with me.’
* Eighty years later, France’s General Henri Lapperine travelled north from Taoudeni with a column of experienced camel warriors. The wells were so caustic as to bleach his men’s clothes and render some of them insane. When his column reached safety its members were horribly bloated and near starvation.
* Aboard one of them was Dr Elisha Kent Kane, who would later become America’s foremost Arctic explorer of the 18505.
* To the Royal Navy’s embarrassment, the Resolute, one of the ships Belcher had deserted in Wellington Channel, floated free and made its way through Lancaster Sound to Davis Strait where it was seized by an American whaler. Polished, buffed and restored to working condition, it was presented to Queen Victoria as a friendly gesture to allay the current diplomatic tension between the two countries. Britain responded in the same spirit: the Resolute’s timbers were made into a desk that was presented to the President. It remains in the Oval Office today.
* He never reached Cape Columbia. His Inuit companions claimed that he had fallen into the Big Lead. Much later they admitted that he was a stern taskmaster who refused repeatedly to let them ride on the sledge. So they shot him and tipped him into the sea.
* The distance of 900 feet is as judged by Shackleton. His biographer, Roland Huntford, puts it at 1,500 feet. Worsley thought it was nearer 3,000 feet.
* This strange phenomenon might have been invented to give the journal a religious touch – to lend it, perhaps, some of the ‘Great God’ grandeur of Scott’s diaries. From a medical viewpoint, it might be explained as a delusion produced by dehydration. (Like Mawson, who had also expressed his thanks to Providence, Shackleton’s men had been short of water during the last leg of their journey. Similar experiences were soon to be recorded on the first ascents of Everest.) Or it could be diagnosed as a shared hallucination, akin to ‘The Angel of Mons’ which so many soldiers said they had seen during the retreat of 1914. On the other hand, it may have been a genuine spiritual experience. No explanation can be dismissed. The image was so powerful that it was adopted by T. S. Eliot in The Wasteland (1922), since when it has entered the religious and literary canon.
* In winter 1923 Arnold Lunn invited him to Murren – the Swiss resort at which Lunn had established the sport of downhill and slalom skiing – and after a few lessons tried him on a short test run. The result was impressive. ‘Sandy pointed his ski straight down the slope, and let go. By a miracle he stood up for most of the way then, at top speed, he came an almighty purler and vanished into a cloud of snow. To the astonishment of the spectators (who all thought he must be badly hurt) he was up in a moment, shook himself and finished the course ... in 40 seconds. On that day the next best time was five minutes.’
Off the Map Page 76
