This is my second post about scenery description in “The Green Hills of Africa” by Hemingway. I’m going to be going through the observation exercise as in the first post . If you haven’t read that post, you might take a look. Otherwise, let’s dig right in.
Today, I’m looking at the first paragraph of Chapter 6. Hemingway is coming down into the Rift Valley, and this is actually something I have some experience of myself. I went to Kenya for three weeks back in 2008, and we went down the Rift Valley wall, traveling from Nairobi to the Masai Mara. The picture above was taken looking out from the road down the Rift Wall, and it does not do justice to the view. The Rift looks like God came along, stuck his hand in the ground, pulled up a fistful of dirt, and walked off with it. Looking hundreds of feet straight down from the edge of the wall is staggering. Looking out, you feel the impulse to use clichés like ‘you can see for miles’ and immediately realize you’d be doing the view a disservice.
Hemingway’s description of his traversal of the Rift captures well the sense of journey and transition. Hemingway and Co. at the end of Chapter 5 have packed up and are driving from one hunting camp to another. The start of Chapter 6, brings them to the edge of the Rift Valley by way of “a sandy red road across a high plateau.” Unlike the interior to exterior descriptions we saw in Chapter 2, Hemingway’s road, traversing from camp A to camp B, moves through a variety of landscapes, as we make the descent down the Rift Wall into the valley.
From the plateau, we pass through rolling “orchard brushed hills” and then “around a forest slope.” This brings the party to the top of the Rift Wall, where Hemingway recounts looking out across the plain and down at the heavy forest at the base of the wall. Adding some color, he notes the long stretch of Lake Manayara covered with “a half million” rosy dots at one end: flamingos.
The journey continues. The road takes makes a steep descent along the face of the wall, and we enter the forest, the road flattening out along the base into the valley itself. They pass through thick woods, along with “cultivated patches of corn, bananas, and trees I did not know the names of.” They pass a trading store, owned by a Hindu, and a cluster of huts. They cross two bridges, traversing a pair of swift-running streams. Now they’re in the forest again, periodically passing small glades. And finally, they come upon a “dusty turn-off that led into a deeply rutted, dust-filled track through bushes to the shade of M’utu Umba camp.” The Destination.
This description is about the journey. The dusty road is the constant taking us toward the Destination. Along the way we cross a plateau and some rolling hills and skirt a forest. We look down into the Rift Valley, taking in the forest and the red, flamingo-filled lake. Then we descend along the road once more. We pass through woods, cultivated fields, more woods, a trade store, a small village, over two bridges, through the forest again, finally reaching that dusty turn-off which marks the end of the journey.
I don’t know about you, but in just one paragraph, I feel like I’ve come a long way. Hemingway packs this brief section with twelve (by my count) scenery features denoting distinct locations. We don’t stay long in any one place, but each is given a little space, enough to liven it up and help it earn its place in the journey. And by the time we arrive, the previous chapter is left far behind, a memory along a dusty road atop Kenya’s massive Rift Wall. Though not there in person, the reader feels as if she has spent the whole day driving along that road right beside Hemingway.