![]() ![]() It is important that the droplets run down the tree because the sun will evaporate any that fall on the hot ground below. The tree’s shape allows it to transport the water from the leaves down the branches and trunk to the roots. As the occasional morning mist sweeps across the mountains, water droplets accumulate on the Dragon Blood Tree’s long waxy leaves. In order to survive here, plants must develop clever methods for obtaining water. ![]() Socotra is a hot, desert island with an especially tough dry season and very little rainfall. It has a truly bizarre shape, reminiscent of a giant mushroom or an upturned umbrella. His book will stand worthily at the end of the Arabian shelf which includes Doughty, Lawrence, Gertrude Bell and Freya Stark' 'A good writer with an eye for the informative, the interesting and the human. 'A most attractive book, with unusual wit and an admirable literary style' Gavin Maxwell, author of Ring of Bright Water perceptive, humorous, frank and informative' 'One of the best travel books I have read in years. His serious and often beautiful writing is interspersed with a very individual humour' 'It really is a little masterpiece, a work of genius - up there, for me, with the travel classics, a wonderful, wonderful piece of writing - his island, a unique and remarkable place, so lovingly and warmly portrayed' He was a Member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and Society of Authors and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He was a member of a pioneer archaeological survey of Lake Tchad in the Southern Sahara, a member of the first balloon crew to fly over Africa, the first free Westerner to travel in Arctic Siberia since the Russian Revolution, a member of the first expedition to explore South America from the Amazon to the Caribbean by hovercraft, and a member of the Royal Society expedition to the Mato Grosso, as well as Special Correspondent for the BBC, Time-Life and Geographical Magazine, biographer of travellers and naturalists Gerald Durrell, Gavin Maxwell and Alexander von Humboldt, and author of several books of reportage and investigative history on Germany at war and under the Occupation, including In the Ruins of the Reich and the bestseller Nazi Gold. He went on many expeditions and wrote numerous books subsequently. Island of the Dragon's Blood was Douglas Botting's first book about his first expedition - the Oxford University Expedition to Socotra. But the people of Socotra were cordial hosts and mostly quite pleased to be the object of western curiosity.Ī remarkable classic of travel writing, Island of the Dragon's Blood is a fresh, vivid and beautifully-written account of a journey that brought up to date our knowledge of a contemporary people with an ancient culture. On mountain treks they endured 'The Pestilences of the Three Hs' - hakak (fleas), which bit them in caves where they slept, hagal (smoke), which choked them in huts where they cooked and humera (donkeys), which jumped on them if they camped in the open. They took blood samples, filmed people and dwellings, recorded the local language, collected flora and fauna, and provided medical services. In 1956 Douglas Botting and five young fellow-travellers mounted the first scientific expedition to Socotra since 1899, and found much to discover archaeologically, botanically, zoologically, and most of all, anthropologically. Part of Yemen, Socotra is a mysterious mountain land with Bedouin cave-dwellers and strange and primitive forms of animal and plant life, including the peculiar dragon's blood tree. The island of Socotra is a dot on the map where the Gulf of Aden meets the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |