pink place on the
map to stand for a part of the world concerning which we know nothing at
all. As time goes on we extend, expand, and modify this picture in the
light of what knowledge we may acquire. So the reading of many books
modifies and expands our first crude notions of Equatorial Africa. And
the result is, if we read enough of the sort I describe above, we build
the idea of an exciting, dangerous, extra-human continent, visited by
half-real people of the texture of the historical-fiction hero, who have
strange and interesting adventures which we could not possibly imagine
happening to ourselves.

This type of book is directly responsible for the second sort. The
author of this is deadly afraid of being thought to brag of his
adventures. He feels constantly on him the amusedly critical eye of the
old-timer. When he comes to describe the first time a rhino dashed in
his direction, he remembers that old hunters, who have been so charged
hundreds of times, may read the book. Suddenly, in that light, the
adventure becomes pitifully unimportant. He sets down the fact that "we
met a rhino that turned a bit nasty, but after a shot in the shoulder
decided to leave us alone." Throughout he keeps before his mind's eye
the imaginary audience of those who have done. He writes for them,
to please them, to convince them that he is not "swelled head," nor
"cocky," nor "fancies himself," nor thinks he has done, been, or seen
anything wonderful. It is a good, healthy frame of mind to be in; but
it, no more than the other type, can produce books that leave on the
minds of the general public any impression of a country in relation to a
real human being.

As a matter of fact, the same trouble is at the bottom of both failures.
The adventure writer, half unconsciously perhaps, has been too much
occupied play-acting himself into half-forgotten boyhood heroics. The
more modest man, with even more self-consciousness, has been thinking of
how he is going to appear in the eyes of the expert. Both have thought
of themselves before their work. This aspect of the matter would
probably vastly astonish the modest writer.

If, then, one is to formulate an ideal toward which to write, he might
express it exactly in terms of man and environment. Those readers
desiring sheer exploration can get it in any library: those in search
of sheer romantic adventure can purchase plenty of it at any book-stall.
But the majority want something different