Real Life Heroes: Sir Richard Burton

By Karen Mercury

Sir Richard Burton (born 1821) was a man a hundred years ahead of his time. A megalomaniac, brilliant, and brutal, he is mostly known for having the nerve to bring the Kama Sutra and the 1001 Nights to the civilized world. Even as a youth he was fearless and reckless. He once broke his trumpet over the head of his instructor because he wanted to play piano instead. He joined the army in India, where he became known for dressing in Arab garb and going into backwoods districts where no one else would dare tread.

He read prolifically, became an expert in all things Oriental, and by the end of his life spoke at least 20 languages fluently. He traveled to the Holy City of Mecca and was the first white man to write about it, being able to pass for Arab. He was nearly caught, certain death for a white man, when he lifted his robe to pee instead of squatting like an Arab. During some of his many leaves from the Army, he learned falconry and wrote The Book of the Sword, so detailed it is still used by fencers today.

But oddly enough he chose to marry an extremely prudish and upright woman, Isabel Arundel. His translation of the Arabian Nights took him years, and Isabel was extremely mortified about "those activities" of his, his interest in the Kama Sutra. Being a widely traveled ethnologist, most biographers posit that he tried all the techniques he wrote about, and with all of the tribes he visited.

Burton defended himself vociferously. "To those critics who complain of my raw vulgarisms and puerile indecencies, I can reply by quoting what Dr Johnson said to the lady who complained of naughty words in his dictionary: 'You must have been looking for them, Madam!'"

In India, he went undercover for General Napier to a brothel where English soldiers "frequented" young boys. His resulting incredibly detailed report caused a scandal and it was quickly buried--like so much of his "deviant" writing would later be buried by his prudish wife. Naturally everyone assumed Burton participated in the activities to obtain such details, but I guess we'll never know.

In 1854 he joined up with John Hanning Speke to travel to Somalia, backed by the Royal Geographical Society. Burton proposed to discover a large interior lake he'd heard about. Burton accomplished the first leg alone, and would set out on the second leg with Speke and two other lieutenants. Before they could leave they were attacked by Somali warriors. Speke was wounded in eleven spots by spears, one lieutenant was killed, and Burton had a javelin thrust through his jaw. Although Burton was cleared of culpability, it was another black mark on his army record. Soon after in the Crimea, his unit mutinied, another black mark that led to a lifelong frustration with being unable to advance in the army.

His most famous trip left out of Zanzibar to "discover" the source of the Nile. Speke amazingly agreed to accompany him--the two were like oil and water, but worked well together on expeditions. They set out in 1857 and suffered various travails--Speke was blind for several weeks and partially deaf due to an infection, and Burton was unable to walk and had to be carried on a litter which ruined his enormous pride. It was actually Speke alone who found Lake Victoria, and Burton refused to believe it was the source of the Nile, since he had been unable to see it himself.

Speke returned home before Burton and published his own account first, which led to one of the great debates of all time. Speke didn't know any African languages and didn't keep nearly as detailed notes as Burton. Speke had an Imperialist attitude toward Africans and Burton was appalled at the way he randomly killed animals and left the meat sitting there. All of this led to a great rift, and when Speke gave his lecture first at the Royal Geographical Society, breaking their promise to present their findings together, Burton challenged him to a debate. It was all-out war by then, with Burton being the most suspicious character due to his "going native." In 1864 they had a date to debate in front of a society, but the day before, Speke was found dead in a bizarre hunting accident. Many people believe he couldn't handle the stress of going up against Burton who was a superior public speaker.

Burton managed to obtain consul positions at Fernando Po and Brazil, bringing Isabel with him and spending much time traveling. He was sent to Damascus where once again he made many enemies, continuing to translate and write many more books. He died in Trieste in 1890--the cloud of another controversy surrounding him when his friends believed Isabel forced him to convert to Catholicism on his deathbed. She had always tried to protect his image, and one of the first things she did upon his death was burn many of his "pornographic" writings, including a final chapter of The Perfumed Garden on pederasty, leading many to term her "the most hated woman in literature."

Karen Mercury's first three historicals, including STRANGELY WONDERFUL were set in precolonial Africa. Her latest, WORKING THE LODE, due out in January 2011, is an erotic romance set during the California gold rush.

Humans in Nature: The Big Hole

By Carrie Lofty

Until 2005, when scholars proved that the abandoned Jagersfontein mine was actually about 110 feet deeper, the Big Hole in Kimberely, South Africa was the largest pit ever dug by hand. The open-pit mine, established in 1871, attracted as many as 50,000 small time miners from all over the world until conglomerates founded by men such as Cecil Rhodes began to buy up shares and consolidate claims. By the time it closed in 1914, the Big Hole had yielded three tons of raw diamonds (2,720 kilos), and every single one of those diamonds was extracted using pick-axes, shovels and bare hands.

As with any discovery of rich natural resources, international players wanted a piece of the action. Major contenders for the African colonial land grab, including Britain, Germany, Portugal, and the Netherlands, became obsessed with what some called "the Diamond Crusade." Using a loophole in an existing treaty with the Griqua tribe, the British were able to repartition boundaries between Cape Colony and the Orange Free State in a move that made Kimberely's diamond-rich land property of the Queen. But the diamonds belonged to those who could best get at them.


As the hole got wider and deeper, miners were at risk of side collapses due to poor scaffolding or rain storms. No longer able to simply stroll to their claim and start digging, the miners and their supplies were lowered into the pit by a series of pulleys and cables. The deeper they got, the more costly to continue mining, which precipitated the push toward consolidation and mechanization.

Cecil Rhodes envisioned an African continent made British, with its populace taught to appreciate British values and customs. He also imagined a railroad that would stretch from Cape Town to Cairo, and his obsession needed funds. He eventually consolidated so many mining claims that he was able to buy out his chief rival, Barney Bernato, for more than five million pounds--the largest sum ever paid by check at that time. This created the De Beers monopoly which still hold tremendous sway over the diamond industry today.


By the time the mine closed in 1914, it had grown to 1500 feet wide (460 meters) and almost 500 feet deep. Upon seeing the mine for the first time, Winston Churchill said, "All for the vanity of women!" To which a woman in the crowd replied, "And the depravity of men!"

Water and debris now partially fill the mine, which has become known throughout the world by its designation as a World Heritage Site. You can read more about the tourist town that has since sprung up around the Big Hole on its website.

Expansion & Invasion: The Benin Punitive Expedition

By Karen Mercury

I was amazed to discover that, as recently as 1897 in Benin City Nigeria, there existed a remote and cut-off civilization that still practiced human sacrifice. "1897?" I scoffed. "They were inventing the automobile then!" This Edo civilization was a secluded kingdom where only a few white men had been allowed to venture. Skilled artisans crafted bronze artwork so advanced it was later compared to Egyptian art in its beauty.

European traders were making inroads into the complex network of Niger delta waterways, anchoring trading hulks in the rivers to satisfy the lust for ivory and "red gold," the palm oil that flowed from the interior. This was a hellish occupation in an area where the chant was "The Bight of Benin! The Bight of Benin! One comes out where three goes in." The White Man's Graveyard was a malarial miasma where only the toughest agents flourished, and a lucky few had the verbal contracts to do business directly with the Oba, who ruled the Kingdom of Edo controlling the river trade.

I wrote in THE HINTERLANDS:

Brendan had established new trading posts in Urhobo country, beaches with warehouses for palm oil and trade goods. The Oba had eghen at the waterside markets, and they often stopped all trade leaving Edoland if they weren't happy with the terms. Brendan's men were so accustomed to the embargoes they kept their palm oil in gourds with narrow necks that could be sealed until the markets reopened.

To force the trade routes open, Whitehall sent a James Phillips of the Royal Navy. Phillips, a former Overseer of Prisons, was determined to take Benin City.

The Edo's human sacrifice was a sort of form of fatalism. The sun, moon, and tides didn't give a damn about the Edo. They looked to the gods that were always smiting people with unexpected catastrophes, drowning, heart attacks, malaria. The spirits were ripe for the devil, so the African flattered them with sacrifices--the more pain and loss it caused the African, the happier the spirits were.

Elle wasn't at the Iroko tree either, where a prisoner Brendan knew as Thompson Oyibodudu momentarily distracted his attention.

"Isn't that the fellow who dresses in white man's clothes?" Evin asked him.

"Sure enough." Brendan nodded grimly. Oyibodudu traded directly with Oyinbo and had adopted their customs.

"He will not go quietly," Onaiwu said.

Oyibodudu's eyes bugged out as though about to explode before the executioner even wrapped the garrote around his neck. Though hobbled, and with hands cinched behind his back, Oyibodudu lurched to his feet and shouted in booming, foreboding tones, "The white men that are greater than you and I are coming soon to fight and conquer you!"

Henchmen leaped to subdue him, to wrestle him back to the properly submissive execution stance. "Kill me quickly!" was the last thing Oyibodudu yelled before he was muffled.

The jovial crowd shrieked in both horror and humor, many of them reflexively turning to laugh at Brendan and Evin. It was of the utmost effort to remain placid through all of it.

The human sacrifice they didn't understand disgusted the British, and they used this excuse as well as the trade embargoes to justify their bellicose intents.

Brendan looked levelly at the jackass. "Yet you're considering deposing the Oba."

Phillips swung his empty gin glass between his fingertips, leaned forward, and said confidentially, "My dear boy. There is every reason to believe the Edo people would be glad to get rid of their king. He's a liability, a throwback to an earlier, primitive, tribal way of dealing. You've seen for yourself the hundreds of human sacrifices. Now surely, even Americans don't stand behind that sort of behavior."

"The sacrifice is a very holy belief in appeasing their gods. When they see us impinging upon foreign countries in the name of our God, quite possibly they think the same thing of us." Brendan paused meaningfully. "And the only sacrifices are criminals and unauthorized traders found in his domains."

When the Oba heard word of the impending invasion, he ordered even more human sacrifices to stave off the Oyinbo arrival. Getting antsy, without waiting for approval from Whitehall, Phillips embarked on his own little expedition to Benin City.

Victoria turned around on her stool. "Vince! Does this mean war? Will we have to leave Sapele?"

Gainey came forward to hand Brendan his cocktail. Brendan took it, for it suddenly didn't seem so odd at that time of day. "My dear, have no fear. This is no war party; poor misguided Jim is just making a friendly stab at opening up the kernel trade."

Rip interjected, his shocked eyes full of concern. "But don't you reckon Brendan here is just going to run and warn the Oba? There could be all sorts of savage ambushes awaiting the poor fellow."

Brendan snorted with disgust. "Rip, a group of eight unarmed white men with a drum and fife band is hardly the making of a necktie party. What would I warn the Oba about...an impending cricket match?"

Phillips took more than eight whitemen: he brought along 250 African soldiers of the Niger Coast Protectorate Force, five British officers, and a military band to display his "friendly" goals. His real mission was to depose the Oba, replace him with a native council friendly to British concerns, and pay for the expedition with spoils of war.

Some chiefs had warned the Oba that "the white man is bringing war." The Oba wanted to allow them into his city, but a hot-headed young general, Ologboshere, thought otherwise. Ologboshere and his men attacked the unarmed "peace" party, wiping out Phillips and all but two white men, and nearly all the native "carriers."

Brendan knew why Phillips had gone unarmed, and left all of his revolvers in a locked trunk hoisted by carriers. During Brendan's last visit to Consular Hill in Old Calabar, he had glimpsed a letter on Phillips's desk in Ralph Moor's characteristically spiked handwriting, telling Phillips: "And do go unarmed, old boy. The first sign of so much as a revolver and those bloodthirsty savages will have your head."

As Brendan surveyed the field of gore and destruction, he instantly knew why Moor had told Phillips that. Moor had a keen idea there would be some sort of altercation that he could use as the excuse for immediate punitive reprisal, his lusty goal for the region since taking control.

In January 1897, Rear Admiral Harry Rawson was appointed by the British Admiralty to lead an expedition to capture the Oba and destroy Benin City. As arranged, Brad Forshaw and John Swainson were allowed into Edo. It was an extremely brave trek for the traders, as Ologboshere had already sent out guerrilla parties to make surprise raids against the British, and the British were sending scouts with Snider rifles and spies into Benin territory.

They brought the news that twelve hundred bluejackets and Marines from London, Cape Town, and Malta had steamed up to Brass under the command of Rear Admiral Rawson. The brunt of the fighting was to fall on the well-seasoned men of the Niger Coast Protectorate Force, the unit of armed constabulary raised by Moor years before.

In addition, there were hundreds of African carriers brought from Sierra Leone, Opobo, and Bonny. Ralph Moor, having been mobilized with alacrity back from London, was already en route to Sapele to inspect the Cape Squadron with Rear Admiral Rawson. Ominously, they were equipped with seven-pounder artillery for bombardment, rocket tubes, and Maxim guns that spewed out six hundred rounds a minute. John and Brad returned to Sapele the next day, never to visit again.

The invading force reached Benin City in February 1897.

Brendan shared looks with Elle and Evin to see a brass Portuguese horseman pendant sticking out from the back pocket of the corporal's trousers. Around his rifle stock, one private had a brass altar ring that he probably didn't know depicted bound and severed heads, and decapitated bodies with vultures feasting upon them. Indeed, the closer they got to the palace, more soldiers dashed hither and yon carrying all manner of spoils of war. Some of the carved tusks were so big and heavy it took two or more men to hoist one of them, and there was barely a beefeater who did not cradle an altar tableau or a head of the Oba under his arm.

"I say." Brendan fell easily into the beefeater lingo. "Would it be possible to get some colors to accompany us back to Sapele?"

"Oh," said the corporal merrily, "I daresay you could take a whole regiment back with you. Everyone's blooming eager to get out of here. It's been a larky expedition, but we've seen enough human sacrifices to last us all month."

Every member of the "Benin Punitive Expedition" took part in the looting, on the third day burning the Oba's palace. They returned home with 2500 religious artifacts and bronze artworks. The Oba escaped and "went for bush" with a detachment, but surrendered some months later. In Benin City, the British laid out a 9-hole golf course, the first hole on the same spot as the former Iroko human sacrifice tree. The artwork was auctioned off to pay for the expedition, eventually winding up in museums all over Europe, setting off a new appraisal of West African art that was copied for decades. Sir Ralph Moor committed suicide in 1909 by drinking potassium cyanide.

Families & Children: Bao

By Jennifer Mueller

Bao. The word literally means wood or board in Swahili, but it is also a game--one of the most popular through East Africa. I learned to play after some Peace Corps volunteers brought it back when they returned from a trip to the coast. It's certainly addicting, and while it might look simple. it takes quite a bit of skill. Many have heard of Mancala--it's available in United States toy stores--but Bao is more complicated since it is played with a board double the size of Mancala. Some call Bao the "king of mancala games," as it is usually considered the most difficult and complex of them.

A Bao board consists of four rows with eight holes each. All the holes are rounded, but the fourth from the right in the middle rows is square and called the nyumba ("house"). Games can take hours, and a quicker version of the game involves putting two seed per hole to start with, instead of the 6-2-2 set up of the official rules. To start, you add a reserved seed to a space with seeds already in it, that allows you to capture from the opposite space of your opponent. You then proceed to spread out how many seeds you captured, ending in another space already with at least one allowing you to repeat the process. Your turn ends only when you land in a space without anything in it.

As all the pieces are in play after adding one per turn, you are moving quite a few seeds around. You must capture if able, but you are also allowed to have a turn to redistribute. However, if on the first move you do not capture, your entire turn must not capture. The object is to rid your opponent's front row of seeds. Regardless of how many might be on the back row, they are unable to move if there are none left in front.

Children have been known to play it with just holes scooped out of the dirt and stones, but it is a mainstay of the coasts of Kenya and Tanzania where it is played in elaborately carved boards. The game is commonly played as diversion while waiting for dinner in cafes, but there are also clubs since many cannot afford the boards to play it at home. Regular championships are held on Zanzibar and Lamu (Kenya) and in Malawi. The only tournament that was held in Europe is organized at the Mindsports Olympiad (MSO) in Cambridge, England.

Maladies & Treatments: The Budas of Abyssinia

By Karen Mercury

The Christian highlands of 19th c. Abyssinia were a hotbed of ills of the flesh, and an abundance of myths and superstitions cropped up to explain or alleviate them. The 8,000 foot craggy mountain ranges were afflicted with drastic temperature drops at night, and terrible humidity during the heavy rain seasons that lend the royal massifs their characteristic dramatic splendor were all responsible for a wide array of bronchitis, pleurisy, and influenza. Ordinary head colds, known as tej metall, they believed were brought on by drinking liquor outdoors in the sun, or the glancing of the sun off the waters of Lake Tzana, and the cures were highly imaginative.

The great Scottish traveler James Bruce, visiting Abyssinia in 1770, spoke of some "medicine a saint from Waldubba had given him which consisted in characters written with common ink upon a tin plate, which characters were washed off by a medicinal liquor and then given him to drink." Bruce wrote:

I opened all the doors and windows, fumigating the apartments with incense and myrrh, in abundance, washed them with warm water & vinegar.... The common & fatal regimen in this country has been to keep their patient from feeling the smallest breath of air, hot drink, a fire, and doors are shut so close as even to keep the room in darkness, whilst heat is further augmented by the constant burning of candles.

Dr. Henry Blanc, one of the Europeans imprisoned in the 1860s by Emperor Tewodros in his mountaintop fortress at Magdala, wrote that, "Charms are here the great remedy. Almost every individual--nay, cattle & mules & horses--are covered with amulets of all shapes and sizes." Constantly followed by crowds chanting "abiet, abiet, medanite, medanite" (Lord Master, medicine, medicine"), Blanc was trailed night and day by syphilitics, lepers, epileptics, or those afflicted with elephantiasis or mutilated at the hands of their enemies, the Galla--all in the hopes the great hakim would open his medicine chest.

The Falasha Jews of the highlands around Gondar were designated lower-class weavers, potters, and most of all, dreaded blacksmiths. Hereditary blacksmiths had malevolent reputations and were often accused of being budas who transformed themselves into hyenas capable of riding horses or sometimes wearing earrings, the majority of budas being women who have turned down sex with another buda.

In The Four Quarters of the World, I wrote:

"I have heard you are treating sick people again! Do you not know that is bad for your health?"

Delphine exhaled. "These people are needful. If I can give them some succor from my medicine chest, why shouldn't I?"

Anatole grasped Delphine about the forearms. "But you mustn't! Don't you see they will begin to prey on you, like—"

"Buda!" A piercing shriek came from the vicinity of the front door, and both Anatole and Delphine craned their necks to see. "He's a buda!"

There were six or so waiting patients Delphine had allowed into the courtyard, sitting on another alga, and at the sight of Kaspar they had all fled until they were pressed up against a wall, making themselves as flat as possible, like rats.

Kaspar screwed up his face and waved a disgusted hand at them. "Ach, buda. . . Is that all they can think about? Their depraved hearts and benighted minds know nothing of God or Heaven!" He walked toward the stairs, pausing to regale the multitude. "Do you not believe in the Prophets, and in Christ, of whom all the inspired writers unitedly testify?" He didn't seem to expect an answer, for he continued up the stairs.

Delphine admonished the huddled group, "Just because he's a blacksmith, it doesn't mean he's a buda. Why do they not think you a buda, Anatole? You're a blacksmith as well."

Few people bothered blacksmiths for these reasons. No one reveals their birth names, because a buda cannot act upon anyone whose real name he doesn't know. Should the buda get the true name of a victim, he gets a kind of straw and mutters something over it, bends it into a circle and places it under a stone. The person thus doomed is taken ill at that moment. Should the straw snap, the patient will die. White men are protected from buda attacks by the color of their skin.

Here, my hero has just told an Abyssinian princess he cannot marry her, and coincidentally she becomes "possessed" on the spot:

The maiden burst into the most horripilating round of laughter. Or was it laughter? Eyes closed, mouth open in a great wail of chortling as though possessed, she kept it up minute after minute until Ravi was compelled to grab her and give her a few swift shakes.

"Woizero Bell, please! Stop that right now!"

But she continued pealing gale after gale of the hyena-like laugh, until women who had been hiding behind the wall rushed forward, crying, "It's a buda! She's possessed by a buda!

Ravinger, knowing budas to be the worst sort of bilgewater imaginable, released the stricken woman and turned her over to the care of her sisters. Abruptly the laughter stopped, and Louisa became stone serious, her eyes staring ahead of her, plainly unseeing. The yammering women around her hushed, and she said in a dead monotone, "I'm perfectly fine. I only want to be bled." She set to howling and flinging her arms above her head, as all the women grabbed at her and concurred, "A buda!

"The buda is tricking us! If we bleed her, he will just attack her even more strongly!"

Some women looked to Ravi for confirmation, so he nodded dully. "Yes, yes, obviously a buda. I'll go see if I can find some charcoal and, er, other various filth." For people so possessed had a great craving for those items, and would sup at a bowl of shit like a faro

"Who are you?" two women demanded of Louisa. "Who are you inside of our friend?"

When Louisa commenced to "replying" in a shrieking gibberish, Ravi backed off slowly. "Take hold of her thumbs!" a woman cried. It was the first sign that the devil was leaving if he allowed her thumbs to be held.

The British Consul Walter Plowden wrote about the medicinal value of hot springs, where both sexes were allowed to enter "promiscuously," but ominously warned that "anyone impure entering the bath will have a snake issue from the spot."

One also had to constantly beware "the evil eye," a belief held in common to many Mediterranean countries. Against that terror, Plowden counseled that people used:

...roots and plants of many kinds--some heirlooms, and others picked up from favored friends, or revealed occasionally in dreams, with shells, bits of amber or ambergris, leg-bones of hawks...the circle of preservatives worn round the neck, these latter are more a precaution against "the evil eye" or "hyena sorcerer."

Plowden may have said much more had he not been murdered by an enemy of Emperor Tewodros near Gondar in 1860.

Daily Life: The Food of Kenya

By Jennifer Mueller

Say African food and you get a myriad of options: from Arabic inspired North Africa and the coast of East Africa to the Maasai drinking blood and milk, spicy Ethiopian to San Bushmen eating what they find--the same as they have for thousands of years. While the cities might sport as modern a kitchen as you can find, the countryside still cooks over an open fire. Where I lived in Kenya, the traditional kitchen was a room separate from the rest of the house, with thatched high roofs. It allows the smoke to rise and filter through the thatch, an odd sight to see smoking roofs as you walk by. Only with the advent of tin roofs have lung problems occurred.

The daily routine is centered on water. If you have it close you save hours. If you have to walk kilometers to find a source, things get more complicated. Kenyan breakfast is usually a cup of chai--watered down milk with enough tea and sugar to flavor it--and a thick slice of bread and blue band with a margarine product needing no refrigeration. Uji is also popular, a ground millet sort of porridge with or without fermentation. For anything else, it takes time. Quite a bit of it. There are very few snack foods other than fruit: mangoes, papaya, guava, passion fruit, maybe an orange or pineapple, and little bananas as big around as a silver dollar and half the length of the ones we see in the store. They're like eating candy.

Market day is the center of any village, usually held twice a week. Everyone with something to sell would descend, whether it was a woman with 10 mangoes looking for some extra cash or a seller who went to the larger town and found treasures that no one else had. Staples usually ran along the lines of beans (up to 20 sorts), rice in some areas, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, onions, cabbage, kale, fruits and, when in season, peas and green beans. Up the mountain where there was access to Mount Kenya, odd fruits--giant green and ugly--could be found if anyone was ambitious enough to go find them.

Kenya was a British colony, but in building the railroad to Uganda, there were thousands of Indians who arrived to work. Modern day Kenyan food is a mix of traditional Kenyan and Indian. Small packets of curry can be bought for only a few cents. Seasonings are minimal: salt, curry, mchuzi mix, bouillon cubes, sometimes hot peppers. But with it they create quite the variety.

It all depends on where you live what you would be eating. In one area the staple food is githeri, another irio, and across the country you haven't eaten unless you've had ugali. All are based on corn to some degree. Githeri is a simple combination of maize and beans. Irio is a mixture of potatoes, maize, and pumpkin leaves. Ugali is corn meal cooked like stiff grits, mainly used as a filler for a soup of some kind.

In the area where I lived, the basis for most dishes were tomatoes and onions. They would be fried in melted shortening before adding the rest, whether beans, kale, cabbage, or githeri, green grams. A few dishes went without, such as mashed bananas and potatoes--only made with green plantains so it is starchy rather than sugary. Mashed potatoes and pigeon peas were served on special occasions.

Meat is expensive. Most families might only eat it only once or twice a week. A special treat is nyama choma, or bits of roast meat. Some places season it; others just cook it plain, like grilling steak. Chickens are raised by most families, as well as goats, cows and, in the north, camel. It's lean meat with no marbling at all. It just takes a little more prep since the connective tissue is rather hard to chew through if left in large pieces.

The coast is an entity unto itself. Middle Eastern spices and coastal ingredients like coconuts all mix to create a menu unlike any in the rest of the country. They make pilau--rice thick with spices and fried--and potatoes cooked in coconut milk, just to name a few.

Barbecued Meat
1 kilo meat
Juice of 2 lemons
2 pounded onions
2 crushed chilies
4 crushed cloves
salt to taste

Marinate: Clean meat and make a few stripes 1/2" deep all over meat. Mix in the rest of the ingredients and let stand for 2 hours.

Barbecue: Prepare the charcoal fire and place grilling wire on top. Place meat on the wire and roast it on a very low heat. Cook evenly on both sides. Garnish with lemon slices. Serve with potatoes.

Pigeon Pea Sauce
1 cup pigeon Peas
2 cups water
2 tablespoons butter
2 onions
seasoning
1 cup milk

Cook the peas in the water until soft. Fry the onions in the butter until golden brown and add the peas. Cook until all the water is dry. Mash the peas into a paste. Season well and add the milk. Reheat and serve with mashed potatoes or bananas.

Ugali
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup maize meal
1/2 dessertspoon dried skim milk powder
salt

Boil water. Sieve maize meal, dried skim milk powder, and salt. Add sieved flour to boiling water. Cook for a few minutes stirring continuously. Serve with stewed meat.

Beef stew
1 lb cut beef
2 carrots
2 green peppers
4 tomatoes
4 onions
Coriander
Curry powder
Black pepper
Seasoning salt, cooking oil, salt

Fry the onions that have been chopped until they turn brown. Add tomatoes and chopped green pepper. Add carrots, black pepper and coriander. Wash the cut meat and sprinkle it with seasoning salt. When the carrots have become slightly soft, add the cut meat. When meat is almost cooked, add some curry powder and salt to taste.

Pilau rice
1.5 lb rice (water according to rice)
1/2 lb green peas
2 T pilau masala (type of spice)
3 onions
3 tomatoes
Oil
Salt

Wash the rice with cold water. Boil the peas until cooked. Chop onions and then fry until slightly brown. Add tomatoes that have been peeled and cut. Boil some of the rice water with the pilau masala until it boils. Add some salt to taste. Add the rest of the water to the fried onions and tomatoes. Add the green peas when the water starts boiling and the rice; let it cook.

Chapati
1 cup flour
1 T shortening
1/2 t. or less salt

Melt shortening in a small frying pan. DO NOT boil it. Mix shortening with flour and salt. Mix with warm water (add just a little bit of water at a time and mix the dough thoroughly, make sure the dough is not hard). Keep for at least one hour. Separate dough into small rolls similar to oven cupcake buns. Use rolling pin and roll the dough balls each on a large flat surface as you roll the pin spread a little shortening on the dough and then tear the now flat pizza like dough spread from the center by pulling evenly to all edges and cut one side so you are left with a long lean piece of dough in your hands. Roll it into a coil (snakes) from each end in opposite directions (one clock wise and the other end counter clock wise) when they get together, then twist one of the collected coil and put it over the other.

Clean area over the oven top and keep a wide flat heavy/thick frying pan on the cooking range, turn on the cooker at low. Leave the dough for about 10 minutes then roll with rolling pin on flat surface into an evenly spread round (pizza like) thin spread. Turn the heat on to medium using oiling brush, spread a little shortening evenly all around the pan and cook the chapatis. Keep turning (rotating it) to ensure even cooking and turn over and keep pressing after turning and also put shortening on top but not too much and keep on pressing in the frying pen until light brown.

Holidays & Celebrations:The Feast of the Cross

By Karen Mercury

Maskal, the commemoration of the Finding of the True Cross, is celebrated in Ethiopia on the 26th of September. Maskal daisies bloom in the central highlands, giving hope for prosperity. The stories of the finding of the True Cross vary, and most accept that the Byzantine Queen Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, set off for Jerusalem to find the cross on which Jesus was crucified. She found the cross by burning incense and following the smoke under the hill of Golgotha. She had bonfires lit on Palestinian hills which could be seen by those in Constantinople.

As for how the cross came to Ethiopia, the 15th c. Tefut manuscript details that the Christian Kings of Ethiopia were often asked to protect Egyptian Copts from Egyptian Muslims. In return, the Ethiopian Emperor Dawit asked for four pieces of the True Cross that were guarded by torchbearers on their journey, then placed in a church in Wollo. Since then, Ethiopian Christians celebrate the occasion with flaming torches and giant bonfires.

Criers start the day by running about chanting "Ahho Akhoy! Awake from idleness! Awake from darkness! Maskal is coming!" Children rush around gathering wood or offerings to purchase firewood for the damera bonfires. My historical The Four Quarters of the World described the scene in Gondar in 1868:

For it sounded like a band of children, raising their voice in a cherubic wavering song, down in the street below. They chattered and clamored, and Delphine rose and went to the balcony. She smiled widely to see a crowd of Abyssinian children, standing in the darkening twilight, bundles of wood at their feet, their upturned faces entreating her for fagots of wood.

"Oh, they're darling!" Even the infirm on her portico had forgotten their troubles, and the crippled were walking, the mute were howling, the insane were serene.

Behind her, Kaspar grunted. "Those squalling ruffians! They are saying--if you can't understand--that they need the wood to contribute to the illumination, and that in honor of your visit they will encircle Qudus Gabriel--that's a local church--with a belt of fire that will blaze to the heavens and eclipse the very stars in the firmament."

"They're saying all that, then?"

"Of course! They're saying that such a flaming demonstration in your honor requires a substantial acknowledgement in return, so they want money--you confounded children!--to donate to the saints, of course, and--Stop that! You're not giving them any money!"

An hour past midnight, quite a party gets going. Debterah priests would get elevated, make open-air chants in praise of the Cross, and joust with sticks. The Rev. Henry Aaron Stern wrote: "Their voices, which are a torture when heard in the church, were not devoid of harmony on the hills, in the perfect stillness of the night. Roused from their slumbers by the strains of the singers, the whole population quitted their lairs, and in pious fervor mingled their own execrable screams with the voices of the trained choristers of the capital."

Delphine made out some figures standing atop a knoll not thirty feet distant, but all men looked alike, nearly blending into the night sky behind them, lit up by oil-dipped rag torches. They had to step carefully, crushed on all sides by torch-wielding pilgrims who waved their beacons in dangerous proximity to Delphine's skirts.

At a given signal the torches were thrust into the heaps of wood and, amidst the clashing of swords, the beating of negarit drums, the finding of the Maskal was proclaimed:

When everyone rushed forward in their excitement toward the warka tree that was the highest acclivity of their particular knoll, Delphine was wrenched back from the crowd's tide by two strong hands she was by now thoroughly familiar with. As she laughed with delight, she felt him effortlessly lift her high, holding both her ankles in one broad palm and perching her like a mermaid on his shoulder so solid it may as well have been a tree limb.

She could easily see over the heads of the mob. Simultaneously at a dozen hills throughout the valley, men thrust torches into the heaps of wood, and the fires soared into the heavens with a hellish boom. Now every man worth his salt unsheathed his shotel, clashing playfully with his neighbor. Anatole, not known for his swordsmanship, feebly jousted with a Bedouin.

Although Delphine doubted this was the most pious manner in which to mark the crucifixion of Christ, it was a wondrous sight to see the flames of the dameras fluttering three stories high under the crystal dappled sky.

Release Party: Strangely Wonderful

It's 1828, and life is good for the pirates Of Madagascar...

On Tuesday, Karen Mercury's third Medallion release, STRANGELY WONDERFUL, hit the shelves. So of course we had to feature her today! Here's the cover copy:

Their Captain is the Hungarian Count Tomaj Balashazy, a refugee from the United States Navy. Count Balashazy rules the coast from his tropical plantation, a fortress built against enemies he's made cruising the Indian Ocean. Tomaj feels guilt at the loss of his family in New Orleans, and he wallows in clouds of opium, soothed by courtesans. When the American naturalist Dagny Ravenhurst, seeking the dreaded and mystical aye-aye lemur, falls into Tomaj's lagoon, it's the beginning of the end of arcadian bliss on the island.

In the central highlands, the French industrialist Paul Boneaux commands his empire of factories. As the special pet of psychotic Malagasy Queen Ranavalona, Boneaux enjoys a monopoly over all manufacturing, commerce, and his mistress. Beholden to Boneaux, Dagny and her two brothers need his patronage to survive. Dagny's joyless scientific heart melts for the Count's poetic nature, pitting the two adversaries against each other. Boneaux yearns for progress and industry, Tomaj for liberty and peace.

When the King dies--or is he murdered?--the Queen gives free reign to her merciless anti-European impulses.The island boils with blood, and only one world can emerge triumphant. In Madagascar's utopian paradise, all is...STRANGELY WONDERFUL

Here's our Q&A with author and world traveler extraordinaire Karen Mercury:

STRANGELY WONDERFUL is your third historical fiction set in Africa. What drew you to writing about Africa?

I honestly think it's a past life thing. When I was four, there was a little Norwegian boy across the street who constantly talked about "Acica." He averred there were "dinosaurs in the sky" there, and for about a year, we lived in this entire realm involving volcanoes in "Acica." As will happen with small kids, it was reality to us. Steiner moved away. Then out of the blue, when I was about eleven, I had this vivid dream. I was a black man on a pristine white beach, and this fellow ran out of the jungle yelling "The mountain exploded!" As my mind's eye pulled back, I saw this flat-topped snowy mountain, and a voice whispered in my ear one word: Kwale. Kwale. I instantly knew how to spell it, and when I awoke, I zoomed to my mother's atlas.

Kwale is a small town on the coast of Kenya. About 500 miles away from Mt. Kilimanjaro, an extinct flat-topped snowy volcano.

Could "science" explain this? My mother tried to tell me I'd seen a TV show on it, somehow. No, I didn't. There had to be some other answers, so talk about literally following your dreams, when I was 21 I got a one-way plane ticket to Africa. In other matters, I'm so dense--that just now writing this--I made the connection between Steiner's volcanoes and the one in my dream.

So yes, the Cliff's Notes version is, I've traveled overland across sub-Saharan Africa a few times. I started in Cairo once, took a leaky dhow up the Nile through the Aswan High Dam, and I don't particularly feel any affinity for Egypt. Your soap is burning hot at four in the morning! I have absolutely no interest in Egyptian history, although I do enjoy Bonnie Vanak's books for their adventure. I feel much more at home in the "miasmatic swamps" of Central Africa. I've never felt more at home. I finally sat on a beach in Kwale and realized that.

What was the most surprising thing you discovered while researching Madagascar?

You know, the strangest thing happened--usually I first delve into the political history of a country. With Madagascar, I realized off the bat the most interesting thing was the natural history of the island--the lemurs, the extinct dodo birds and the coelacanth--the bizarre "Cretaceous" fish that still occasionally washes up around the Comoros. I'm not sure which is the oddest. Scientists still theorize that Madagascar busted away from the mainland a trazillion billion years ago (sorry, once again, not a scientist, but would LOVE to pretend to be one on TV), and as a result you have "strange extinct animals, sprouting a wild assortment of endemic beings found nowhere else: fragile orchids that could only live under glass, coral masquerading as swords and lace, mythical underground caverns where translucent blind fish bumped into rocks, and animals without backbones fell over..."

So, of course, I made my heroine a naturalist, which is what they used to call a botanist and biologist--back then they didn't specialize. She meets the hero while she's climbing onto a branch to collect the rarest of rare orchids...and falls into his pirate lagoon.

John Cleese, of all people, made the best Madagascar video ever, and it's going for like $78 on eBay! I finally obtained a copy, and he saw first-hand how the lemurs adapted to the "spiny forest" environment of Southern Madagascar. These lemurs have this Darwinian ability to leap twenty feet from thorny tree to thorny tree and somehow avoid all of the spikes, and then do some amazing sashaying dances on the ground, and to this day, no one knows how they do it. Well, if John Cleese is amazed, then I'm amazed.

Your books contain a lot of humor. To what do you attribute that?

It's not something I intended. As a teenager, I realized that most of the scenes I'd written that I wished to read over and over were mostly humorous. Once I realized I wanted to become a "serious" writer, I eviscerated all of the "humorous" scenes from my manuscripts. "None of that allowed in here! This is some serious shit here!" THE HINTERLANDS, my first published book, was the first book where I just allowed the humor to stay in. Apparently everyone liked it.

Humor is inexplicable. I don't consider myself a humorous writer. Sometimes I'll be writing a funeral scene, and in the middle of nowhere, a character will bust out with the most hysterical stuff I've ever seen in my life. (Yes, I am one of those writers who thinks their characters act independently of them). Conversely, I'll be writing a scene where I'm certain comedy might come into the picture, and it turns out like a funeral scene, with Dostoevskian characters busting in making dramatic statements and everyone acting dour.

I have no idea where it comes from. I do believe that humor isn't something Abbott + Costello suddenly invented. There was a lot of humor in history. Just like we didn't suddenly invent sex. Just ask Sir Richard Burton.

I don't purposefully set out to be humorous--I'm afraid that might ruin it, if I purposefully tried. I just let the shit fall where it may. I'd hate to be a stand up comedian who had to be "on" all the time--how on earth do they do that? That must be more stressful than being a historical fiction author.

What books are you reading now?

Not having much time for fiction, I need an entire TBR room (don't we all?). I'm a member of the Historical Novel Society and just attended their conference in New York in June, so I picked up a bunch of great stuff there. I absolutely adored THE SWEET BY AND BY written by Jeanne Mackin. I talk that book up every chance that I get. She wrote about the Fox sisters, who inadvertently started the Victorian Spiritualism movement. Gorgeously written book--just a pleasure to read. I recently speed-ordered SWITCHING TIME, a nonfiction about a shrink who treated a gal with seventeen personalities. Could not put it down.

What's next for you?

I just finished writing a historical erotic paranormal set in Zanzibar in 1876, a time and place I know well. A lot of this alleged comedy came out while I wrote it. As is turns out, this wandering showman who is a marionettist and a puppeteer is the Assistant Consul at the American Embassy there, and when the real Consul shows up, and a bunch of dead bodies appear, the shit hits the fan. It involves the Sultan of Zanzibar, bath houses, levitation, and Spiritualism.

Any advice?

Never try to "write to the market." Stay true to yourself. Your own voice will come through, and allow that to happen. A lot of readers don't like explicit sex. Nothing wrong with that. There's always a market for what you have to say.

***

Thanks for your thoughtful answers, Karen!

You can purchase STRANGELY WONDERFUL online through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, or Books-a-Million.

Ask your own question or leave a comment for the chance to win a copy of STRANGELY WONDERFUL. One random commenter will be chosen this time next week. Check back to see if you've won.

Crime & Punishment:"They Deprived Them of Their Hands"

By Karen Mercury

Emperor Tewodros of Abyssinia (1818-1868) was a most difficult despot to write about. I studied him in depth for over a year and felt I'd come to know him, yet I was still strangely on the fence about him. As writers know, there are always grey areas to "evil" people--no one is ever completely black or white. Tewodros changed with the moon.

What is certain is that he was insane by our standards now, and that he decimated his beloved country, but that was not his intent. He was without doubt one of the greatest rulers of all time, possessed of a brilliant military mind, brutally enigmatic.

So I wrote:

Tewodros was tireless in business, sleeping only a few hours each night, and he was strangely polite and charming when glad. He was a dashing ruler, invoking great love and adoration in his people when he wished, but all trembled when his ire was raised. In his early years he had shown clemency toward the vanquished, wishing them to be his friends, requesting nothing from them other than arms for his soldiers. He had been free from greed and generous to a fault. Like Peter the Great, he was a king of kings, overflowing with military idealism, a lover of the mechanical arts, possessed of unbounded courage. Yet when his beloved first wife who accompanied him on all campaigns had died, and he had tired of the endless rebellions always springing up around him, he changed. He took greatly to drink and began exacting revenge upon his enemies in equal part. He burned men, and deprived them of their hands and feet for the slightest insurrection.

He achieved "The Long March" with his followers and army against the greatest of all odds, hauling armament his white slaves had built for him (the first ruler in Africa not to rely on foreign armament, he built his own foundries), up to his mountaintop fortress of Magdala, where he made his last stand against the invading British Army, because he'd found it necessary to imprison several dozen white missionaries. It took a few years for word to get back to Whitehall (Tewodros didn't allow anyone to write letters), and the expedition to be mounted. One of the prisoners, the Reverend Henry Aaron Stern, was imprisoned for putting his hand to his mouth. Placing your hand against your mouth was not a kosher thing to do in Abyssinia--or around Tewodros.

Yes, indeed, Stern wrote a captivating and engrossing edition entitled Wanderings Among the Falashas. He published it back in England, and had the sincere naïveté to return to Abyssinia afterwards. Tewodros said "I've had enough of your Bibles" and had him chained, claiming that he was calumniated in the book. He nearly killed him, merely for putting a hand to his face to suppress horror at seeing his two servants beaten to death.

I loved Stern so much, I based a major character on him. Missionaries are usually good for that sort of thing!

Of course, along the way, I formulated my own ideas about "Ted," as I came to fondly call him. I worked hand in hand with Sir Dr Richard Pankhurst (yes, the son of Sylvia) who was at the time busily erecting a statue of Ted in Addis Ababa. I was very worried that he might find my portrayal on his idol perhaps a bit too harsh, but he never said a word to me about that. I came to believe that Tewodros had what we now call "abandonment issues" and was highly mortified that he was the son of a prostitute and, much like Phil Spector, held guns to the heads of people who tried to leave him.

"You’re a good friend of the Emperor. Why is he so fickle and unstable? Why does he imprison so many people who only mean to help?"

Delphine knew this would be a complex question, but even she was surprised at the thoughtful manner in which the Captain laid his pipe on the windowsill, then bore down on both palms to lean out the window and regard Lake Tzana. The silver cumulus clouds that raced over Gondar's valley cast mutating shadows on his excruciatingly handsome face, forming craggier depths to the half-moon scar on his left cheekbone. "Tewodros's spirit does not lie easy with him, Miss. He wishes to keep everyone close to him, for it's his deepest fear to be abandoned. He wants Europe, and most of all England to love him, and so he keeps making overtures that he interprets as being rebuffed. If he imprisons everyone, they can never leave, and so he'll never have to be alone."

"He's insane," Delphine said quietly.

Standing erect, Ravinger looked down at her. "Perhaps. But isn't it in everyone's nature to want to be loved? And do we not go to great lengths to achieve that?"

"But...we don't imprison those we expect love from, Captain."

His last stand on Magdala was doomed from the start, and I'm sure he knew that. He wanted to show the world that an African ruler could build a country without the help of Europeans, and that he did. But as a military ruler, he found he couldn't control the different districts of the country that were swiftly becoming disillusioned with his particular brand of justice--his army needed food, yet Tewodros had 10,000 head of cattle shot because a prophet told him their lives would signify the end of an emperor.

She was soon in a horrifying clearing. The prison stables stood to her left, and a sheer drop of some three thousand feet occupied the entire right. Tewodros stood over a youth of about thirteen, his talwar already lubricious with blood, his face disfigured by rage. Delphine raced forward, her garments tripping her. She landed on her knees next to the squirming body of a man who had been hacked apart by Tewodros's sword.

"Tewodros! Why do you do this? Why do you try him? You told me you were benevolent, and would let them go!"

"Do these people think they can oblige me to strike off their chains? Now they cry and moan for food, when I do not even have enough food to give my devoted soldiers!"

He evidently recognized her, but he was so distorted with anger, he was in an entirely different sphere altogether.

Delphine's hands slapped together in prayer. "What has this boy done? How could he have possibly--"

"He is the son of a man who took liberties with a concubine!" Tewodros shrieked, his hair all in unseemly disarray.

"But then you must kill the man who did that, not the son!"

She saw only sky then, for she was wrenched from her kneeling in the mud, her limbs were jerked about, and she was hauled back into a buttery cocoon of men's limbs. She shook her head to clear it of phosphenes, and she was staring into the bug-eyed visage of Kaspar Nagel, who agitated her rudely.

"Mein Gott, woman, will you never cease your unhelpful ravings? Leave the Emperor be! He is the only one who can pass judgment and carry out the sentencing!"

"But that poor boy is only the son of a man who had eyes for one of--" She turned to gesture where Tewodros had stood, only to view the enraged monarch toss the flailing boy over the edge of the cliff. The boy hovered for a moment suspended on the breeze, a black figure cut from a block of wood with no features or defining marks. Then he was gone.

General pandemonium broke out now, the prisoners yet waiting in the queue to have their fetters struck suddenly changing their minds and trying to flee back inside the stables. The inmates still inside prevented their access by pushing to get out, as they had not witnessed Tewodros's acts of murder. Soldiers in the audience who thus far had numbered among the perfectly free, innocent, and liberated also turned and made tracks in a disorderly fashion toward the peaks of Selassie and Fahla, as though in his mania Tewodros might select random victims from among the general populace.

"Do you see? See what he’s doing, Kaspar? Not an hour ago, he promised me he was freeing everyone! Now he’s throwing little boys over the--there's another one! What has that man done?"

Kaspar wouldn’t answer, and wrestled with her arms as though determined to throw her to the ground and sit on her, so she beseeched a nearby man, "What has that man done?"

"He loaded a musket for the Emperor, and it misfired."

"Misfired!" That fellow went sailing over the cliff's edge.

The crime of the next man, who had been a valet to the Emperor, was of daring to laugh with a royal body-guard. He was swiftly dispatched. And because the water wells were situated at the base of that cliff and some of the victims fell into the water, thus not arriving in the properly deceased mode, Tewodros sent musketeers to finish them off, blasting away ruthlessly in a neat line on the cliff like so many architectural crenellations.

Are things better now in Ethiopia? I had to snail mail chapters to Dr. Pankhurst at his university in Addis, because computer systems were so dodgy there, and he's very old and can't read the computer screen very well. Once, I didn't hear from him for 2 months, and I read there was a huge uprising at the University, with students shot and jailed. In the end, I found that I loved Ted, and probably would've followed him to Magdala, too.

Ravi leaned against the red stone arch and looked out at the pool. "He does now say that Europeans are wanting in sincerity, ill-mannered and ill-tempered. But it’s only because he had the highest expectations of us. You have to understand, I came here ten years ago. Things were different then. According to the apocalyptic work Fikkare Iyesus, Christ would himself bring Tewodros to power after a long period of corruption, perversity and lawlessness, of the rule of imposters and corrupt Rases. That was the Zemene Mesafint. During Tewodros's reign, the wrath of God would be averted and blessings and mercy bestowed upon the faithful."

"Oh, yes. Don’t they all say that, at first?"

"He exhorted the farmer to plough and the trader to trade. He urged thieves and shifta to quit their robbery. Wronged people were invited to appeal, the destitute to approach him as their father. He took it seriously, devoting several hours a day to hearing plaintiffs. He also abolished the custom that kinsmen of a murderer or even someone who’d caused an accidental death had to answer with their lives."

"Yes..."

"He risked the clergy's wrath by booting all the big fish, saying that each church should have land sufficient to feed only two priests and three deacons, giving their lands to farmers. He's an educated man, Delphine, raised in a convent. He puts some of our countrymen to shame in his knowledge of Shakespeare--he can certainly out-quote me, though I've never had a warm and friendly relationship with that behemoth."

In the words of Reverend Henry Aaron Stern: "Abyssinia is the only nation in Central Africa bearing the name of Christian, and now, alas, notorious for vice, that may yet become famous for 'whatsoever is honest, lovely, and of good report.'"