The Wind Makes Dust - Four Centuries of Travel in Southern Africa - Ben MacLenna

2003 first edition paperback with 377 pages. In good secondhand condition.

An offbeat anthology spanning four centuries of travel in and around the southern tip of Africa. From the early European seafarers making sometimes bloody contact with Khoikhoi at the Cape, up to the era of railways, barbed-wire fences and pass laws, The wind make dust takes us on a rollicking ride through the past. It parades a cast that includes soldiers, cannibals both black and white, missionaries, elephant hunters, escaping slaves, circus showmen, fossil hunters, a shipwrecked Siamese mandarin and a homesick San shaman. It also contains directions for cooking elephant's foot, some truly awful poetry, a quest for a unicorn, and a sprinkling of discreet sex.