Great North Road — Lawrence G. Green

Condition: Good
First Edition, Howard Timmins, 1961, Hardback with removable protective plastic wrap – Africana – 563pp.

A Journey by Land and Water, on and Off the Highway, in Search of Lonely Places and Cities, Strange Tales and the Odd Characters of Tropical Africa.

Here is a book on Africa which is both memorable and authentic.

An idea that came to Lawrence Green while he was flying up and down Africa during the war—with a sense of frustration, because air views are merely tantalising glimpses. So he decided to go back and investigate the queer stories he had heard, and study the lonely places and cities that flashed below the wings of the aircraft.

Seventeen years later he carried out this plan, travelling always on the surface. His journey took him to Bangweulu of the pygmies and an unknown waterfall that some regard as the highest in Africa. He steamed up Lake Tanganyika in a passenger liner, meeting unusual characters everywhere and hearing strange tales.

His narrative of Tanganyika territory in the days when it was German East Africa contains some of the most weird material Lawrence Green has ever gathered. Then he goes on to Nairobi, Mombasa, Zanzibar and the “lost city” of Gedi, uncovering story after story that other writers have missed.

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