<h3>Mokoum</h3>

The bushman was no longer a savage like the rest of his race, the ancient Laquas; for, born of an English father and a Hottentot mother, the half-breed, through his association with strangers, had gained more than he had lost, and spoke the paternal tongue fluently. His costume, half-Hottentot, Half-European, consisted of a red flannel shirt, a loose coat and breeches of antelope hide, and leggings made of the skin of a wild cat; from his neck hung a little bag containing a knife, a pipe, and some tobacco; he wore on his head a kind of skull cap of sheep skin; a belt, made from the thick thong of some wild animal, encircled his waist; and on his naked wrists were rings of ivory, wrought with remarkable skill. From his shoulders flowed a "kross", a kind of hanging mantle, cut out of a tiger's skin, and falling as low as the knees. A dog of native breed was sleeping near him, while he himself was smoking a bone pipe in quick puffs, giving unequivocal signs of impatience.

"Come, let's be calm, Mokoum," said his interlocutor. "You are truly the most impatient of mortals whenever you are not hunting; but do understand, my worthy companion, that we can't change what is. Those whom we are expecting will come sooner or later—tomorrow, if not to-day."

The bushman's companion was a young man, from twenty-five to twenty-six years of age, and quite a contrast to him. His calm temperament was shown in every action; and it could be decided without a moment's hesitation that he was an Englishman. His much too homely costume proved him to be unaccustomed to traveling. He gave one the idea of a clerk who had wandered into a savage country, and one looked involuntarily to see if he carried a pen behind his ear, like a cashier, clerk, accountant, or some other variety of the great family of the bureaucracy.

In truth, this young man was not a traveler, but a distinguished savant, William Emery, an astronomer attached to the Observatory at the Cape—a useful establishment, which has for a long time rendered true services to science.

The scholar, rather out of his element, perhaps, in this uninhabited region of South Africa, several hundred miles from Cape Town, could hardly manage to curb the impatience of his companion.

"Mr. Emery," replied the hunter in good English, "here we have been for eight days at the place appointed on the Orange, the cataract of Morgheda. It is indeed a long time since it has befallen a member of my family to remain eight days in one place; you forget that we are rovers, and that our feet burn at lingering here."

"My friend Mokoum," replied the astronomer, "those we are waiting for are coming from England, and surely we can allow them eight days of grace; we must take into account the length of the passage, and the hindrances which a steam-vessel must meet with in ascending the Orange; and, in short, the thousand difficulties belonging to such an undertaking. We have been told to make every preparation for a journey of exploration in South Africa, and that being done, to come here to the Falls of Morgheda and wait for my colleague, Colonel Everest, of the Cambridge Observatory. Well, here are the Falls of Morgheda, we are at the place appointed, and we are waiting: what more do you want, my worthy bushman?"

The hunter doubtless did want more, for his fingers played feverishly on the lock of his rifle, an excellent Manton, a weapon of precision with conical shot, and which could bring down a wild cat or an antelope at a distance of eight or nine hundred yards. Thus it may be seen that the bushman had put aside the quiver of aloes and the poisoned darts of his fellow-countrymen for the use of European weapons.

"But are you not mistaken, Mr. Emery?" replied Mokoum. "Is it really at the Falls of Morgheda, and towards the end of this month of January, that they have appointed to meet you?"

"Yes, my friend," quietly answered William Emery, "and here is the letter from Mr. Airy, the director of the Greenwich Observatory, which will show you that I am not mistaken."

The bushman took the letter that his companion gave him. He turned it over and over like a man not very familiar with the mysteries of penmanship; then giving it back to William Emery, he said, "Tell me again what the blotted piece of paper says."

Jules Verne The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians in South Africa Sampson, Low, Marston, & Company: New edition 1896 Translated from the French by Ellen E. Frewerpp131—135

The measurement of longitude is important to both cartography and navigation. Historically, the most important practical application of these was to provide safe ocean navigation. Knowledge of both latitude and longitude was required. Whereas latitude was easy to determine by celestial navigation using the elevation of the pole star or of the sun at noon, for longitude early ocean navigators had to rely on dead reckoning. This was inaccurate on long voyages out of sight of land, and these voyages sometimes ended with shipwrecks.

wikipedia | Longitude

Don't look to Amazon for information on this one. I can't recall it in detail, but it reduces Verne's account of mapping the meridian to a nineteenth century safari. It's a bloody interesting book and worth a damned-side better review—no, I don't have the time. I hauled it down off the shelf yesterday and have reread several chapters. What really intrigues me, though, is not Verne's work so much as...

One-hundred and ten years after this particular book's printing—it's my oldest, I think—I'm living in the shadow of a nuclear power station, a reactor of which was sabotaged late last year by racist public servants hacked off with affirmative action (no, I'm not culling this from the news, so you needn't tell me Eskom's fucking useless and, yes, things will get worse; I've spoken to people directly involved and know racism to be at the heart of a problem affecting all of us).

Power cuts are a hassle and will cost the country dearly. Knocking out a capital city is not a risk or consequence-free activity. But we can live with these things. Well, I certainly can. The reactions of several groupings, political parties (local-government elections were held today), and individuals fascinate me. All in all, the action taking place at the intersection of race, culture, and society is fascinating and, for this reason, I hope Chris Locke just keeps on keeping on. There's a lot of stuff in there and, as with most things, people have absolutely no idea...