Thursday, February 01, 2007
Dr Livingstone, I presume
Done another four discs today. Some of them had a fair amount of twitch in them, surprising since I think I cleared them twice last year. Spared a seedling holly next to one of them. I have a habit of doing this sort of thing; then nurse the seedling for a couple of years, then root it up because it is in the way. Maybe I should move it to somewhere more suitable.
One the plum trees continues to look rather lopsided and generally a bit unwell in the trunk, despite vigourous growth elsewhere. This is the Victoria from which I forgot to remove the white nylon tie which tied the label on until too late - said tie now being buried in the trunk, just above the union. At the time I noticed, the tie was well bedded and it was winter. I thought that cutting it out would do more harm than good. As it turns out the tree might not look to hot but I least we get plums off it - which is more than can be said for the Early Rivers next door - my favourite plum of childhood. We have got nothing off that one in the four or five years it has been there.
Buds on the willow cuttings are showing signs of swelling. Maybe they really will go.
Been reading a biography of Dr Livingstone by one Tim Jeal who really seems to have it in for him. I don't think he much likes his subject. But it does seem that he was a very strange bird. Fought his way out of a horrific (by today's standards) childhood to become a medical missionary - the missionary part of which seems to have involved a great deal of tedious bible study- so perhaps it is not surprising that he turned out rather out of the ordinary. He had tremendous guts and drive and, on a good day, was a good observer of people and places, but he made an awful lot of avoidable mistakes, some of them pretty awful if not fatal (mostly to others).
Observation included doing latitude and longitude in the middle of a swamp (which among other things requires one to remember to pack the log tables) when one was nearly dead. All of which reminded me of Captain Scott who exhibited some of the same virtues and vices 30 years later.
I had forgotten, if I ever knew, that he had more or less sunk into not very reputable oblivion at the time that Stanley (or his newspaper rather) made him into the media event of the decade - which appears to have had the incidental side effect of piling on the pressure on the East African slave trade. Which last I believe, shipped more slaves to the Middle East than we ever shipped to the Americas - with shipping conditions pretty much as bad although they were much better treated on arrival, generally working indoors rather than in sugar fields. So it is ironic that many African Americans are turning away from us to Islam.
Another factlet is that Dr L decided that no-one was going to make any progress converting East Africans to Christianity so long as their tribal structures were intact. (His own tally in 20 years or so was one convert, who lapsed after a few years). Conclusion, smash the structures up first and then have another go. Maybe teach them the value of money while you are at it so that they want to do paid work to buy toys. In which I think he was quite right (assuming, that is, that one thinks that conversion was right). It seems that for some reason missionaries got on better at that time in West Africa - and it would be interesting to know what that was. Dr L was also reasonably clear headed - at least some of the time - about why Africa wasn't always the tribal idyll that it sometimes appeared to be. They went in for slaves, murder and theft just like everybody else.
For a book about an explorer, very badly equipped with maps. Much worse than the other biography I got for 5p from a car boot sale some time ago. A small red book (just a little larger than the famous little red book), I think more in the heroic vein, but at least it has enough maps to work out what is going on without recourse to an atlas. Must re-read this one to see just how heroic it is.
One the plum trees continues to look rather lopsided and generally a bit unwell in the trunk, despite vigourous growth elsewhere. This is the Victoria from which I forgot to remove the white nylon tie which tied the label on until too late - said tie now being buried in the trunk, just above the union. At the time I noticed, the tie was well bedded and it was winter. I thought that cutting it out would do more harm than good. As it turns out the tree might not look to hot but I least we get plums off it - which is more than can be said for the Early Rivers next door - my favourite plum of childhood. We have got nothing off that one in the four or five years it has been there.
Buds on the willow cuttings are showing signs of swelling. Maybe they really will go.
Been reading a biography of Dr Livingstone by one Tim Jeal who really seems to have it in for him. I don't think he much likes his subject. But it does seem that he was a very strange bird. Fought his way out of a horrific (by today's standards) childhood to become a medical missionary - the missionary part of which seems to have involved a great deal of tedious bible study- so perhaps it is not surprising that he turned out rather out of the ordinary. He had tremendous guts and drive and, on a good day, was a good observer of people and places, but he made an awful lot of avoidable mistakes, some of them pretty awful if not fatal (mostly to others).
Observation included doing latitude and longitude in the middle of a swamp (which among other things requires one to remember to pack the log tables) when one was nearly dead. All of which reminded me of Captain Scott who exhibited some of the same virtues and vices 30 years later.
I had forgotten, if I ever knew, that he had more or less sunk into not very reputable oblivion at the time that Stanley (or his newspaper rather) made him into the media event of the decade - which appears to have had the incidental side effect of piling on the pressure on the East African slave trade. Which last I believe, shipped more slaves to the Middle East than we ever shipped to the Americas - with shipping conditions pretty much as bad although they were much better treated on arrival, generally working indoors rather than in sugar fields. So it is ironic that many African Americans are turning away from us to Islam.
Another factlet is that Dr L decided that no-one was going to make any progress converting East Africans to Christianity so long as their tribal structures were intact. (His own tally in 20 years or so was one convert, who lapsed after a few years). Conclusion, smash the structures up first and then have another go. Maybe teach them the value of money while you are at it so that they want to do paid work to buy toys. In which I think he was quite right (assuming, that is, that one thinks that conversion was right). It seems that for some reason missionaries got on better at that time in West Africa - and it would be interesting to know what that was. Dr L was also reasonably clear headed - at least some of the time - about why Africa wasn't always the tribal idyll that it sometimes appeared to be. They went in for slaves, murder and theft just like everybody else.
For a book about an explorer, very badly equipped with maps. Much worse than the other biography I got for 5p from a car boot sale some time ago. A small red book (just a little larger than the famous little red book), I think more in the heroic vein, but at least it has enough maps to work out what is going on without recourse to an atlas. Must re-read this one to see just how heroic it is.
# posted by Jim @ 8:26 AM 
