Difficult and Dangerous Roads

Hugh Clapperton was one of the first British explorers to enter the central Sahara, but his journals have never been published before. Recently discovered in South Africa, they show him to be one of the most sensitive and sympathetic travellers, his observations untainted by any sense of moral superiority. Hugh Clapperton has a sharp eye for detail, be it wind-stiller magicians, the effect of the evil eye or slave skeletons clustered around well heads. He hears musicians in jackal-headed masks and bagpipes in a wedding procession. He has a gift for friendship, feasting locals, offering himself to women and delighting in the company of both dignified tribal sheikhs and fearsome renegades like Mustapha the Red.