GLOBAL EXPLORATION

Arbuthnot

A Chap’s Guide to Explorers

Torquil Arbuthnot explores the various approaches one may take to the adventure of exploration

Most chaps when venturing abroad do so for the purposes of leisure or to escape creditors. Their days are spent not lounging on the beach in ‘swimwear’ but in propping up the cocktail bar of the Hotel Splendiferoso or at the chemmy tables in dear old Monte. Some chaps, however, are of a more adventurous, nay foolhardy nature, and toddle off to foreign climes in a spirit of exploration and discovery. The reasons why fellows strike off into the unknown with a machete and prismatic compass are multifarious, but the most common types of explorer are described on the following pages.

The Gimmicky

A sudden rush of blood to the head, or one whisky too many, will convince some chaps that circumnavigating the world on a unicycle while dressed as a penguin is a top-hole idea. Usually a good night’s sleep will put this idea to rest, but occasionally the folly will persist. One comes across such solitary people on one’s travels, traversing the Gobi Desert on a space hopper or visiting all the world’s countries that end with the letter N. Whether they are self-consciously ‘wacky’ students or simply barking mad, it is usually best to avoid them. If they are merely eccentric, they may be worth passing the time of day with, and the encounter will make an amusing chapter in one’s travel memoir. Fortunately for the gimmicky traveller, the locals are taught at an early age that all Englishmen are mad and therefore they are afforded patience and hospitality by the average Mexican peón or Siberian moujik. If lucky, the gimmicky traveller will appear in a brief paragraph of his local newspaper and, if unlucky, in its obituaries column.

The Foolhardy

It is as a red rag to a bull to tell the foolhardy explorer that no-one has ever crossed a certain desert or scaled a particular peak and lived to tell the tale. The reckless explorer will take such statements as a challenge and as an affront to his red-blooded English manhood, and will bound off undaunted like an overexcited puppy. The foolhardy explorer is to be admired for his pluck and sheer bloody-mindedness. Often he will set out on his expedition woefully unprepared – attempting to climb a mountain in plimsolls with a stepladder, for example, or crossing the Pacific in a boat made from empty tobacco tins. Occasionally this type of explorer does make it through (Thesiger crossing the Empty Quarter of Arabia, for example, or Heyerdahl stepping off the Kon-Tiki en to the beach of the Raroia atoll), but this is rare. More often the solitary traveller (for no one in their right mind will accompany them) is last seen in a leaky canoe off the coast of Togo, or as a tiny dot through the telescope, clambering slowly up the notorious Thanatos Ridge of Mamostong Kangri.

The Avaricious

The avaricious traveller will set forth, not with dreams of noble exploration, but with the purpose of replenishing his wallet. An avid reader of Rider Haggard and Jules Verne, he will set off on expeditions to discover the ‘lost’ something or other. This quest may involve nothing more tiring than ambling into the foothills of the Arizona desert with a pickaxe over his shoulder to find the Lost Dutchman Mine. There are grizzled prospectors in the saloons of the Americas who will sell one a map of such lost mines for the price of a drink. Occasionally, however, the avaricious explorer will set his sights higher and set off to discover the fabled city of El Dorado or the hidden treasure of the Knights Templar. As a sideline he will attempt to purchase land. With a bit of hard bargaining, a large chunk of Uzbekistan can be bought from a local warlord for an assortment of costume jewellery, some clockwork mice and Charlotte Rampling’s telephone number. After several exhausting months in the Amazon jungle or the Nama Karoo desert, he will emerge in ragged clothes, not with gold and jewels, but with an array of life-threatening tropical diseases and insect bites.

The Scientifical

The scientifical explorer is usually the bestequipped, being supported by the Royal Society of Thingummies and sponsored by various multinational corporations. His expedition will consist of hundreds of native bearers and pack animals, carrying not only microscopes and butterfly nets but also enough chairs and tables to furnish a large house in the Shropshire borders. The aim of the expedition is usually to discover something geographical or medicinal, be it the source of the Limpopo, the highest peak in Antarctica or a cure for Green Monkey Disease. Although well-kitted out, the expedition will not be without its dangers, as local chieftains will look askance at columns of palanquin-borne scientists traipsing through their back gardens. They may well take umbrage and the explorer will be lucky to avoid being dropped into the Sacred Volcano. Upon returning successfully to London, however, the scientifical explorer will be knighted, have a mountain range named after him, and spend the rest of his days contentedly cataloguing his vast collection of Madagascan dung beetles.

The Bloodthirsty

This explorer’s only aim is to slaughter as many of God’s creatures as he can, whether ‘for the pot’ or to stuff, mount and display in the ancestral home. He carries with him a well-thumbed copy of the I-Spy Book of Endangered Species, which he carefully ticks off every time he bags one. He gives the animals a sporting chance by letting them charge bellowing at him before he despatches them with a dum-dum from his Martini-Henry. Of private means, his safaris will be well-victualled, with many of his expedition’s pack-mules carrying cases of gin and jars of Gentleman’s Relish. If he runs low on supplies, Fortnum and Mason can deliver via parachute drop. He will be traditionally attired in a poplin safari suit replete with multiple cartridge loops, sola topi with leopardskin hatband, veldtschoen from Abercrombie & Fitch, and a tobacco pouch made from a baboon’s scrotum. Occasionally he will be hired to kill a notorious man-eating tiger or lion that is eating all the local railway company’s employees. He will die a noble death, gored by a Cape Buffalo, trampled by an enraged scimitar oryx, or falling off a bar stool at the Muthaiga Club.

The Missionary

The missionary explorer used to be a religious maniac who made a nuisance of himself failing to convert the heathens to Christianity. Nowadays, the missionary traveller is just as tiresome but more likely to be an environmental zealot or rabid vegan, hectoring the Kalahari Bushmen to use fair-trade coffee in their macchiatos and not to eat sausages. They try to ingratiate themselves with the local populace by wearing native garb but end up looking like the lead in the Penge Amateur Dramatics Society’s production of Ali Baba. The locals will tolerate these explorers for as long as they prove useful (as sources of televisual programmes on their laptops, for instance) but once they have seen 93 episodes of Grand Designs, the missionary will be ceremonially sacrificed by being chiffonaded with a tomahawk and thrown to the hyenas. The canny chap will equip himself with a magician’s set from Hamleys and an astrological almanac. A few simple conjuring tricks and the ability to predict eclipses of the sun will result in the explorer being declared a god, and he can see out the rest of his days in a hammock being fed slices of pawpaw by adoring handmaidens. n