Werke von Albert Millican
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A very handsome production with full gilt cover and a colour lithograph frontispiece. This copy has the bookplate of Neville Chamberlain, who was Prime Minister of Great Britain 1937-40 and held many other important Government posts
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I had no idea, prior to this book, that orchid hunting was, in the 1800's, such a thing. It Was, though. According to Wikipedia,
All this to point out that our Albert is not taking this trip merely to enjoy the scenic wonders of Columbia. He is an aggressive adventurer and insatiable collector of plants and animals that might be hauled back to England and sold, and yet, at the same time he is an enthusiastic and educated observer and chronicler of the landscapes, animals, and plants in the country he travels through. Though he is clearly an experienced and resourceful traveler, the dangers and adventures he describes are truly daunting, and he conveys his stories with a sometimes charmingly casual aplomb. The downside, though, from a modern perspective, is that he engages in some really horrifyingly thorough acts of destruction to plants and animals, directing his hardworking native employees to cut down thousands of trees to collect a few orchids, most of which, he tells us, don't actually survive the trip back to England, and shooting countless birds and beasts of all sorts, sometimes for food or “specimens,” but often apparently just for the sheer pleasure of killing things. If he sees any irony in carefully describing the beauty of a bird or mammal and then blasting it to kingdom come with his guns he gives no sign of it. Typically, in the chapter on the Roseate spoonbill, he describes the birds in meticulous, appreciative detail and then says, “I succeeded in obtaining some five hundred specimens of birds of many species in this locality.” (In fairness it should be noted that at the same period our Englishman is adventuring in Columbia, residents of the United States were gleefully slaughtering the last of what had been a huge population of passenger pigeons, not to mention the American bison, the ivory-billed woodpecker, the great auk, etc.) He also frequently comments that certain locations he visits no longer have the plants or animals he hoped to see because earlier European visitors have cleaned them out. Given the period and context, readers will be dismayed but not shocked by his comments on the human inhabitants of the places he visits – his racial views are not enlightened.
Although to modern eyes he will likely appear a rapacious pillager and destroyer, not to mention a racist, by the standards of his own day Millican was a daring collector of natural wonders, bringing back to England exotic plants and animal specimens, expanding European knowledge of exotic and little know places, and delighting in the curious customs and histories of the people in the places he visited. In describing some of the groups of native people he encounters his views are sometimes irredeemably abhorrent (though typical for the period), at other times his tone is one of open-minded curiosity, interest, and appreciation. As well as rugged landscapes and exotic animals, Millican faithfully describes the layout, architecture, industries, social conventions, and histories of the villages and cities he visits, as well as historical anecdotes of various degrees of plausibility. The pictures, both the drawings and Mr. Millican's photographs (he is a keen photographer and is eager to explain how he arranged to get various shots), add greatly to the book.… (mehr)