IT WAS NOT UNTIL I WAS 12 OR 13 THAT I finally gave up hope of becoming an
explorer. Since about the age of 8, I had been aware of a strong, and at
times almost desperate, need to see parts of the world before anyone else
did. I’ve never been quite sure where this urge came from, but returning to
these classic accounts from the golden age of exploration reminds me. I was
absolutely entranced by the tales the great explorers told. The frostbite,
the gangrene, the cannibalism, the curses, the naked fear and total
exhaustion, the whole panoply of horrors seemed so much more attractive than
playing French cricket and drinking Horlicks.
My imagination fed greedily on accounts of appalling suffering and insane
bravery, such as Captain Scott’s doomed but grippingly documented South Pole
expedition, Livingstone’s defiance of death and disease to reach the
towering waters of the Victoria Falls, Mallory and Irvine vanishing into a
cloud 800ft from the top of Everest, never to be seen again.
For a would-be explorer the 1940s and early 1950s were difficult times. Both
Poles had gone, as well as the North-West and North-East Passages, the
source of the Nile and most of Saudi Arabia. The great Himalayan peaks, on
which I’d pinned my hopes, were going down like flies. Annapurna, Everest
and then K2, all conquered, and I hadn’t even reached puberty.
On May 27, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay struggled to the top of
Everest, the first people to do so. I was proud of them. We all were. And
maybe I was a little disappointed too. Maybe I had a hint even then of what
I feel looking back now, that this was literally and metaphorically the high
point of a golden age of exploration which had enthralled the Western world
for a century and a half.
After Everest most of the iconic extremes had been conquered. But it was not
only that. The Everest expedition, well-financed, well-equipped and
media-conscious, seemed to suggest that we had got the measure of the
difficult and dangerous. Something of the mystique of exploration had gone.
Technology was becoming more sophisticated, reducing both human risk and
human achievement. There were great challenges left, but few of them
captured the public imagination in the same way as the search for the source
of the Nile or the crossing of Australia. Four years after Hillary and
Tenzing’s triumph, Vivian Fuchs led the first crossing of Antarctica, but as
Fergus Fleming writes: “It seemed that victory had become a non-event . . .
nobody died, everything went more or less according to plan.” At the time of
writing Ranulph Fiennes is doing his best to keep the traditions of
exploring alive and well, setting himself ever-harder targets and ever-more
punishing challenges. But the achievement of “being the First” is no longer
as evocative and resounding as it once was. The fact remains that, as I had
reluctantly to admit, before I was even out of short trousers, most of the
world had been explored.
The only exploration that captured international attention in my adult life
was when the Eagle landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969, and Neil
Armstrong became the first man to set foot on a surface beyond our Earth.
But, if it’s not too facetious to say so, even this was different from the
classic feats of exploration. Neil Armstrong was hurled at the Moon at the
cutting edge of a massive investment programme, he didn’t have to part the
bushes and dodge the blowpipes, face a third year on the ice like John Ross
in the 1830s or see his fingers and toes removed one by one like Maurice
Herzog as he descended Annapurna.
In The Explorer’s Eye — some of its images reproduced here —
Fergus Fleming and Annabel Merullo have put together an enormously
attractive and comprehensive guide to the whole heroic, tragic and
triumphant history of the great years of exploration. Using the explorers’
own words wherever possible, and accompanying them with a priceless
collection of visual records, they have brought extraordinary adventures
back to life. It’s impossible to look through this book without being
dazzled by the scale and scope of these giant steps for mankind, and
thankfully Fergus Fleming’s commentary keeps the essential human
perspective, celebrating the fearless and the foolhardy alike and relishing
the follies as much as the successes.
It is difficult to know which plums to pick out. I was pleased to be reminded
that one of the greatest, and least-known Firsts belongs to the expedition
led by the seriously uncatchy Jules-Sébastien-César Dumont D’Urville, the
first man to set foot on the Antarctic continent, in 1837. No pemmican for
them — being French, they celebrated with a bottle of good Bordeaux, well
chilled I suppose. The Scandinavians come out particularly well, the
inspirational and inventive Fridtjof Nansen creating an egg-shaped hull for
the Fram, the ship built for his polar expeditions, to avoid being
trapped by the ice. And it worked. Amundsen, a career explorer, almost
scored a sensational trio, first to the South Pole, first through the
North-West Passage and, quite possibly, first to the North Pole.
The exploration of the North Pole turns out to have a murky history. I had
thought it an incontrovertible fact that the American Admiral Peary reached
it in 1909, but it turns out that he may have got within only 60 miles of
it. Finding the exact position of the Pole is tricky, as it is a point on
water, rather than land, and Fleming suggests that the first man to
“indisputably” reach the North Pole on foot was Wally Herbert, in 1968. I
was 25 then, dammit, and could have done it after all. As it is, I had to
wait until 1991. (Stop showing off — Ed.)
What typified this era of post-Enlightenment journeys was the need to write
everything down. We learn that Freya Stark, one of only two lady explorers
to make the book, wrote an average of ten letters for every day she
travelled. Richard Burton, who spoke 27 languages, wrote copious journals,
but, in one of the most tragic episodes recorded in these pages, his wife
Isabel burnt many of them on his death for being too rude. Scott’s
expedition to the South Pole may have been a failure but his diaries are
surely the most moving of any quoted here. Trapped by a tremendous blizzard,
crippled by frostbite, Scott continues with daily entries, until the very
end, when the mundane becomes unbearably poignant. “It seems a pity, but I
do not think I can write more.”
Scott’s expedition moves us particularly, accompanied as it is by some of the
great photographs of the exploration age; Frank Hurley’s striking images
remain among the most powerful polar images ever taken, as unsurpassed as
Wilfred Thesiger’s photographs of the Empty Quarter in Arabia. Here is the
pure Indiana Jones of the cave that John Stephens discovered at Bolonchen,
one of the lost cities of Central America, and the delightfully batty
aero-helmets worn by Auguste Piccard and his crew when they became the first
men to ascend into the stratosphere.
The Explorer’s Eye is a treasure trove. Like a Hiram Bingham
unearthing Machu Picchu, or Charles Darwin landing on the Galapagos, untold
wonders are about to unfold before you.
© Michael Palin 2005
Extracted from the Introduction by Michael Palin to The Explorer’s Eye, by
Fergus Fleming and Annabel Merullo. Published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
August 25, £25.
£22.50 (free p&p) 0870 1608080 www.timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst
ROBERT FALCON SCOTT
Robert Falcon Scott’s doomed Antarctic expedition, 1912
Friday, March 16 or Saturday 17. Lost track of dates but I think the last
correct. Tragedy all along the line. At lunch, the day before yesterday,
poor Titus Oates said he couldn’t go on; he proposed we should leave him in
his sleeping bag. We . . . induced him to come on, on the afternoon march.
In spite of its awful nature for him he struggled on. At night . . . we knew
that the end had come.
Should this be found I want these facts recorded. Oates’s last thoughts were
of his Mother, but immediately before he took pride in thinking that his
regiment would be pleased with the bold way in which he met his death. We
can testify to his bravery. He has borne intense suffering for weeks without
complaint, and to the very last was able and willing to discuss outside
subjects. He did not — and would not — give up hope to the very end. He was
a brave soul.
This was the end. He slept through the night, hoping not to wake; but he woke
in the morning — yesterday. It was blowing a blizzard. He said: “I am just
going outside and may be some time.” He went out into the blizzard and we
have not seen him since.
EDMUND HILLARY
Edmund Hillary’s narrative of the conquest of Everest, 1953
Time was passing and the ridge seemed never-ending . . . I was beginning to
tire a little now.
I had been cutting steps continuously for around two hours, and Tenzing, too,
was moving very slowly. As I chipped steps around still another corner, I
wondered rather dully just how long we could keep it up.
Our original zest had now quite gone and it was turning into more of a grim
struggle. I then realised that the ridge ahead, instead of still
monotonously rising, now dropped sharply away, and below I could see the
North Col and the Rongbuk glacier. I looked upwards to see a narrow snow
ridge running up to a snowy summit. A few more whacks of the ice-axe in the
firm snow and we stood on top.
My initial feelings were of relief — relief that there were no more steps to
cut — no more ridges to traverse and no more humps to tantalise us with
hopes of success. I looked at Tenzing and in spite of the balaclava, goggles
and oxygen mask all encrusted with long icicles that concealed his face,
there was no disguising his infectious grin of pure delight as he looked all
around him.
DAVID LIVINGSTONE
David Livingstone’s Zambezi expedition, 1865
A strong marauding party of large black ants attacked a nest of white ones
near the camp . . . we could not see the order of the battle; but it soon
became apparent that the blacks had gained the day, and sacked the white
town, for they returned in triumph, bearing off the eggs, and the choice
bits of the bodies of the vanquished.
A gift, analogous to that of language has not been withheld from ants: if part
of their building is destroyed, an official is seen coming out to inspect
the damage; and after a careful survey of the ruins, he chirrups a few clear
and distinct notes, and a crowd of workers begins at once to repair the
breach. When the work is completed, another order is given, and the workmen
retire.
