Some travel writers, in an attempt to simulate the hardship of Victorian journeys, like to impose artificial difficulties on themselves. A glut of memorably foolish yarns with titles like Hang-Gliding to Borneo or To Bognor on a Rhinoceros discredited the genre in the 1980s. In every case it would have been quicker for the authors to take the train. Why wind-surf across the Mojave when there’s a serviceable coach service?
Tim Butcher, formerly a Telegraph war correspondent, is biased towards old- fashioned travellers in the Redmond O’Hanlon mould who, with their bushy side-whiskers and squire-naturalist curiosity, continue a tradition of Victorian exploration. His best-selling Africa adventure, Blood River, followed in the footsteps of Morton Stanley and sought to navigate modern-day Congo chiefly by means of canoe. (Butcher was about 40 at the time.)
His new book, Chasing the Devil, retraces Graham Greene’s 350-mile journey across Sierra Leone and Liberia in 1935.
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