The Anthologies: Africa: The Anthologies

By Tahir Shah

During a career of thirty years, Tahir Shah has published dozens of books on travel, exploration, topography, and research, as well as a large body of fiction.

Through this extraordinary series of Anthologies, selections from the corpus are arranged by theme, allowing the reader to follow certain threads that are of profound interest to Shah.

 

Spanning a number of distinct genres – in both fiction and non-fiction work – the collections incorporate a wealth of unpublished material. Prefaced by an original introduction, each Anthology provides a lens into a realm that has shaped Shah's own outlook as a bestselling author.

 

Regarded as one of the most prolific and original writers working today, Tahir Shah has a worldwide following. Published in hundreds of editions, and in more than thirty languages, his books turn the world back to front and inside out. Seeking to make sense of the hidden underbelly, he illuminates facets of life most writers hardly even realize exist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Secretum Mundi Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Jun 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781914960314

Book preview

Once in a very long time you encounter someone

who inspires you right down to the marrow of your bones.

It’s as if you’ve waited a lifetime for them to come along.

The kind of person who gives rather than takes,

and who adds zest and flavour to the world.

Señor Giovanni Putton is one such man.

I’m connected to him deeply in our love for life and stories.

But most of all we are bonded man-to-man

by our magical and mysterious love

– for Africa.

The Anthologies:

Africa

Ceremony

Childhood

City

Danger

East

Expedition

Frontier

Hinterland

India

Jungle

Morocco

People

Quest

South

Taboo

By Tahir Shah:

Travel

Trail of Feathers

Travels With Myself

Beyond the Devil’s Teeth

In Search of King Solomon’s Mines

House of the Tiger King

In Arabian Nights

The Caliph’s House

Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Journey Through Namibia

Novels

Jinn Hunter: Book One – The Prism

Jinn Hunter: Book Two – The Jinnslayer

Jinn Hunter: Book Three – The Perplexity

Hannibal Fogg and the Supreme Secret of Man

Hannibal Fogg and the Codex Cartographica

Casablanca Blues

Eye Spy

Godman

Paris Syndrome

Timbuctoo

Midas

Zigzagzone

Nasrudin

Travels With Nasrudin

The Misadventures of the Mystifying Nasrudin

The Peregrinations of the Perplexing Nasrudin

The Voyages and Vicissitudes of Nasrudin

Nasrudin in the Land of Fools

Stories

The Arabian Nights Adventures

Scorpion Soup

Tales Told to a Melon

The Afghan Notebook

The Caravanserai Stories

Ghoul Brothers

Hourglass

Imaginist

Jinn’s Treasure

Jinnlore

Mellified Man

Skeleton Island

Wellspring

When the Sun Forgot to Rise

Outrunning the Reaper

The Cap of Invisibility

On Backgammon Time

The Wondrous Seed

The Paradise Tree

Mouse House

The Hoopoe’s Flight

The Old Wind

A Treasury of Tales

Daydreams of an Octopus & Other Stories

Miscellaneous

The Reason to Write

Zigzag Think

Being Myself

Research

Cultural Research

The Middle East Bedside Book

Three Essays

Anthologies

The Anthologies

The Clockmaker’s Box

The Tahir Shah Fiction Reader

The Tahir Shah Travel Reader

Edited by

Congress With a Crocodile

A Son of a Son, Volume I

A Son of a Son, Volume II

Screenplays

Casablanca Blues: The Screenplay

Timbuctoo: The Screenplay

Secretum Mundi Publishing Ltd

Kemp House

City Road

London

EC1V 2NX

United Kingdom

www.secretum-mundi.com

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First published by Secretum Mundi Publishing Ltd, 2019

THE ANTHOLOGIES: AFRICA

© TAHIR SHAH

Tahir Shah asserts the right to be identified as the Author of the Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Visit the author’s website at: www.tahirshah.com

ISBN: 978-1-914960-31-4

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Contents

Introduction

Accra, 2007

Robert Adams Narrates

Shakiso, 2000

East From Addis

Love in the Desert

Sir Wilfred Thesiger, I Presume…?

In Old Cape Town

On the Skeleton Coast

The Mummy’s Hand

On the Road in Ethiopia

The Islamic Legacy of Timbuktu

Hannibal in Afar

The Missionary’s Death Curse

The Gold of Sheba

Fast Times in Narok

Into the Great Zahara

In the Highlands of Ethiopia

Arrival at Timbuctoo

Secret Societies of Sierra Leone

Magnificent Namibia

A Visit to Tahirland

At the Illegal Goldmines

Orinoco, 1988; Swakopmund, 2003

The Fattening Rooms

The Tale of the Rusty Nail

Introduction

MY EARLIEST MEMORIES

are of Africa.

I remember sitting on the grass at Villa Calpe, the Tangier home of my grandfather, The Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah, my nostrils catching the scent of orange blossom for the very first time. I must have been about two and a half years old. The intensity of that smell, matched by the delicious warmth of the sunlight on my skin, was seared into my memory in the most intoxicating way.

I’ve been extraordinarily blessed to travel throughout the world, learning first-hand about cultures and traditions. As anyone who has travelled knows, each of one of the great continents holds magical delights of its own.

As a parent I have brought my children up to shun favourites – but rather to select particular favourites for certain moments or moods.

In the same way, I dislike being asked for my favourite destination. It’s the kind of question posed by people who have not had vast swathes of land and sea pass beneath them. Travel in a deep-down way, and you begin to understand that every place, every experience, every person encountered, is valuable in their own way.

Having said that, of all the regions I’ve known, Africa is different.

Not that it is more beautiful or mesmerizing than any other, but rather it sings to those who find themselves there with an intoxicating and almost primeval rhythm.

I have read a great many books by people from the Occident who have lived and travelled in Africa. They wax lyrical about the landscapes, the traditions, and the lack of ‘modern’ conveniences. Such descriptions and depictions of the continent tend to be written from one angle, and one angle alone. Presented by Western writers, for a Western audience, they lack depth, and rarely reflect the mass of intertwined layers.

Africa is like a wise old grandmother sitting beneath the tree in the shade. Her face is wrinkled, her memory an endless stream of events and stories from long ago. A rollercoaster of experience, her memories are packed with adventures and wonder. As beautiful outside as in, she’s inspired by what she’s known and seen, and doesn’t need to impress anyone because she is who she is.

As the world careens forward at breakneck speed – raging about the latest inventions, electronic sensations, miracle cures, and all the rest, it forgets Africa. One day – perhaps tomorrow, but probably not – people in the Occidental world will wake up and understand that the mighty landmass that stretches south from Tangier to the Cape is humanity’s singular and communal manifestation of hope.

By then the natural world may have been decimated, the tribes robbed of their last proud traditions, and the majestic landscapes plundered for the minerals that lie beneath them.

Each night before I sleep, I whisper a silent prayer.

A prayer that the world will wake up and witness Africa for what it is:

A complex crucible of peoples, nature, and awe-inspiring vistas...

A land that can teach us, if we stop robbing it and start listening to the wisdom it is ready and waiting to give.

Tahir Shah

Accra, 2007

LIKE ALL OF

us, my life is plagued by what they call in the media ‘digital noise’.

From the moment I wake up in the morning, until the time I rest my head at night, my world is bombarded with messages. They arrive through Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Instagram, from WhatsApp, Facetime, Skype, Signal, and via numerous email accounts. On any given day I receive about four hundred messages. Most are from readers of my work. A few are from people I’ve encountered on the twisting journey of my life. A great many more hail from an altogether different realm…

Messages that slip through from the Treasure Zone.

On a particularly grey winter morning a couple of years ago, I was sitting up in bed with an espresso wondering how I’d get through a day of storm-clouds and cold, hard rain, when my laptop beeped – signalling the call to battle.

In desperate need of something to raise my spirits, I scanned the email inbox, and sifted through the usual onslaught of bills, more bills, invitations and pleas for advice and help.

I was about to close the computer and get back to my espresso, when something caught my eye. By commenting on what it was I’m in danger of lifting the lid on my ingenuous nature. I prefer to call it an optimistic nature – an overwhelming need for a strain of easy-within-reach fabulousness.

And that is exactly what the message from Patrick Walumba promised.

The title read:

‘Fifty Gold Bars Awaiting You, Sir!’

Sipping my espresso, I allowed my finger to drag the cursor down to the message.

Click.

Patrick Walumba’s gilded lifeline opened up:

‘Sir, I am a humble farmer from the poor country of Ghana in West Africa. While ploughing fields near my hometown of Damongo in the north three months ago it was very hot. So I rested my donkey under a baobab tree, and took rest from the sun. Crouching on the ground, I thanked God for all I have in the world, and all the joy He has bestowed upon me. Even though it was so hot, I prepared to get back to the work – as there was still so much ground to furrow.

‘Just as I was about to lead my donkey, Harriet, out of the shade, I tripped over what I thought was a root. Looking down, I noticed it was not a root, but something made from iron. Curious, I scratched away at the object with my hands and saw it was in actual fact an iron handle set into a stone slab.

‘As you can imagine, I was surprised. And I was excited. Looking around to check no one else was watching, I used a sharp stone to dig away at the slab. Then, with all my strength, I pulled. There was no chance of raising it. So, I tied a length of rope to the handle, and attached the end to Harriet. A minute or two later, the stone slab was pulled off!

‘Peering down into the hole, I saw there was a chamber, with rough stone steps going down. Although very dark, I could see something shining down there… something that looked to my eyes like gold!

‘Again, checking no one was watching, I tethered Harriet to the baobab tree, and made my way to the hole. I must be honest, I was very frightened. I feared a snake might be ready to strike me. Or perhaps it was a trick, I thought – and someone was waiting to trap me in there forever.

‘But, plucking up courage, I descended the steps one by one. As my eyes got used to the darkness, I paced down onto the floor of what looked like a natural cave. The baobab’s roots covered the walls. And the floor was covered in human bones. Hundreds of them. But they did not seize my attention as you might imagine. The reason is because at the far end of the chamber, there lay a pile of gold bricks. Glinting in the shaft of light that coursed down into the hole, they looked like an apparition.

‘For a long time I stood before them, as though witnessing a miracle of God. I didn’t know what to do. Something inside me was telling me to run back to the surface, close the hole, and to forget about it. After all, there was a danger of submitting to greed. And greed was sure to lead to disaster for me and my family.

‘But then I heard a voice. The voice of an angel. It said to me: Patrick Walumba, you are a humble farmer, and a man who is trusted by God. It is not your destiny to be wealthy, but it is your destiny to help those in need. My master is the Lord, and he is relying on you to do what is right. You must take all the gold from this cave, and distribute it to people in the world whose need is great. Do you understand?

‘Falling to my knees, I gave thanks to the Almighty. Then, lead in prayer by the angel, I promised to follow the instructions, even though my mission was sure to be dangerous and hard. Over days and weeks, I removed the golden bars from the cave, making sure no one saw what I was doing. So fearful was I that news of the discovery would get out, I told no one. Not even my wife, or my five precious children. The secret was known to me and the angel.

‘Once all five hundred gold bars were out of the cavern, and hidden in various places in the local area, I set about working out a way to do as the blessed angel had instructed – the mission of distributing the wealth to those who needed the money to fulfil their dreams.

‘As I have said, I am a humble farmer, and although I can read and write, I was not fortunate to receive a good education. For this reason, I took time to educate myself. I learned about the world, studying by night. I read books about gold, about poverty and wealth. Then, little by little, I learned how to use a computer.

‘Once I was familiar with the internet, I spent months searching for good people – the kind who