ABSTRACT
European travellers and administrators brought their own intellectual and cultural baggage to West Africa, not least of which were their perceptions of 'nature' and 'wilderness'. However, these were not uniform, and were at times contradictory. On the one hand, they were informed by classical and Judaeo-CChristian concepts of humans dominating nature and creating civilised spaces with utilitarian purpose, while on the other, they included Romantic versions of landscape and the 'noble savage'. McEwan's chapter on women travellers' representations of African forests explores these themes (chapter 2), It begins by pointing to the contested definitions of 'forest' shaped by different values and perceptions. Moreover, the representations contained in the writings of these women travellers highlight the gendered nature of such understandings. The five narratives considered cover the period from 1830 to 1900, and contain complex and contradictory views ranging from the forest as a Garden of Eden sullied only by the slave trade to forests as (frequently disorganised) regions of the exotic and dangerous (which contributed to the depiction of Africa as the 'dark continent'). Also, as McEwan makes clear, the forest was 'appropriated' by Europeans in a number of different ways. For example, while missionaries spoke of bringing 'light into the darkness' of the forest and the lives of its inhabitants, utilitarian appropriation, if not always overt, also lurked near the surface. The imperial adventure, of which McEwan's women writers were a part, was securely underwritten by the ideology of free trade liberalism. The latter was couched in terms of unhindered commerce, leading civilisation with one hand and peace with the other, with the result that mankind would be happier, wiser and better.
