Praise for Peter Matthiessen s AFRICAN SILENCES

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2 Praise for Peter Matthiessen s AFRICAN SILENCES His latest, African Silences, is an account of two trips Matthiessen made to Africa; it s as multifaceted as he is. It s part travelogue, part nature study, part adventure; each of these parts benefits from the author s keen observation and ability to describe what he sees in almost lyrical prose. Columbus Dispatch At times poetic and always informative. Matthiessen is a great travel companion. His knowledge of plants, animals and people is breathtaking. Boston Globe Matthiessen brings a needed balance to the question of wildlife preservation, never losing sight of the problem s human dimension. St. Petersburg Times His work is that rare combination of solid information and splendid writing. His book is elegant and elegiac. For his fans, that will come as no surprise. For new readers, it can be a wonder. Detroit Free Press What has been justly called the gravitas of Peter Matthiessen is here the weight and honesty, the civility, the ironic balance, the clarity of intellect. Seattle Times If Matthiessen is always both literary stylist and naturalist, in his latest work, African Silences, the naturalist prevails consistently absorbing. Newsday Matthiessen is an elegant writer and a reliable reporter. He stumbles upon strange scenes and boils the truth out of them. Philadelphia Inquirer 2

3 ALSO BY PETER MATTHIESSEN Fiction Race Rock Partisans Raditzer At Play in the Fields of the Lord Far Tortuga On the River Styx (and Other Stories) Killing Mister Watson Nonfiction Wildlife in America The Cloud Forest Under the Mountain Wall Sal Si Puedes The Wind Birds Blue Meridian The Tree Where Man Was Born The Snow Leopard Sand Rivers In the Spirit of Crazy Horse Indian Country Nine-Headed Dragon River Men s Lives 3

4 PETER MATTHIESSEN AFRICAN SILENCES Peter Matthiessen was born in New York City in 1927 and had already begun his writing career by the time he was graduated from Yale University in The following year, he was a founder of The Paris Review. Besides At Play in the Fields of the Lord, which was nominated for the National Book Award, he has published five other novels, including Far Tortuga and Killing Mr. Watson, as well as the collection On the River Styx and Other Stories. Mr. Matthiessen s parallel career as a naturalist and explorer has resulted in numerous works of non-fiction, among them The Tree Where Man Was Born, which was nominated for the National Book Award, and The Snow Leopard, which won it. His other works of nonfiction include The Cloud Forest and Under the Mountain Wall (which together received an Award of Merit from the National Institute of Arts and Letters), The Wind Birds, Blue Meridian, Sal Si Puedes, Sand Rivers, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, Indian Country, Nine-Headed Dragon River, and Men s Lives. 4

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8 First Vintage Books Edition, July 1992 Copyright 1991 by Peter Matthiessen Maps copyright 1991 by Anita Karl and Jim Kemp All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by Random House, Inc., New York, in Portions of this work were originally published in Audubon and Outdoor magazines. Pygmies and Pygmy Elephants: The Congo Basin was originally published in Antaeus as Congo Basin: The Search for the Forest Elephants. parts I and II. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Matthiessen. Peter. African silences / Peter Matthiessen. 1st Vintage Books ed. p. cm. Originally published in hardcover by Random House, Inc., New York, in 1991 T.p. verso. eisbn: Africa Description and travel Matthiessen, Peter Journeys Africa. 3. Natural history Africa. 4. Naturalists United States Biography. 5. Authors, American 20th century Biography. I. Title. [DT12.25.M ] dc Author photograph 1991 Nancy Crampton v3.1 8

9 For George Schaller, Jonah Western, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Alec Forbes-Watson, Peter Enderlein, Brian Nicholson, and other mentors and companions of immemorial long days on foot in Africa. 9

10 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In addition to Drs. Gilbert Boese and David Western, I am grateful for help and hospitality, instruction, and good company, to almost all those people, black and white, who are mentioned in the book. Dr. Richard Carroll and also Drs. William Conway and William Weber of the New York Zoological Society provided helpful information and support. Finally, my thanks to Mr. William Shawn of The New Yorker, which paid my share of the considerable expenses of the forest elephant survey made in