For those lucky ones
contemplating a golfing
vacation, or indeed a
holiday trip of any kind
to Southern Africa, it will
be anything but a ‘dark’
experience!
Bring your sunglasses, suntan lotion and camera
and be prepared to have your senses dazzled –
not only by the sunlight, but also by the smells
and sensory experiences that any ‘new’ continent,
and especially Africa, can offer a traveller’s
palette jaded by the familiarity of ‘home’.
The term ‘dark’ that has often been applied to
Africa is a complete misnomer.
The description’s exact origins are obscure, but it
was popularised to some extent, as a reference
for the continent as a whole, by the celebrated
Victorian explorer Henry Stanley’s two books
on his travels in the continent titled; ‘In Darkest
Africa’ and ‘Through the Dark Continent’.
The term is just the type of hyperbole that any
publisher, in any era, would be tempted to use
to boost public interest and book sales, but
also conjures up other ideas such as ‘unknown’,
‘mysterious’ and ‘savage’.
But in truth even here, at least as far as the
first two terms go, the area hardly qualified
on these counts either, as it had been trading
on an intercontinental level for millennia and
its coastline had already been well mapped by
various European navigators.
Happily the region does have a real sense of the
unknown and the mysterious.
However its savagery, unless you should choose
Volume 4 • Issue 49
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