The relationship between the nineteenth-century travel writer and his audience can be placed within the prescribed formulae of the travelogue genre. Certain seminal aspects of the nineteenth-century travelogue are the status and self-image of the explorer-cult figure, his Anglocentric cultural superiority and the appropriation of fauna, flora and ‘tribe’ as a means of supplying empirical evidence in a scientific and ethnological debate. In this article the author examines the application of these formulae to precolonial Namibia in the travel writings of Charles Andersson, James Alexander, Francis Galton, Thomas Baines, James Chapman and other nineteenth-century writers. The main focus is on the way in which Namibia is appropriated by these travel writers and explorers to serve the scientific and romantic needs of an expanding industrial power. From Alexander’s work (1838) to Andersson’s last text (1875), the attitude of the travel writers towards mid-nineteenth century Namibia is chiefly revealed in their discussion of the fauna, indigenous Namibians and the terrain. After considering their texts collectively as a body of opinion, indicating differences where appropriate, the author places the travelogue genre within the context of its literary response to Victorian readership and indicates its place in the mythology of Victorian society. Bibliogr., notes, ref.
