Cameroon with Egbert by Dervla Murphy – first published 1989
Dervla Murphy and her 18 year old daughter Rachel set off with Egbert their pack horse to walk around rural Cameroon. I thought there was too much detail in the book unless you happen to be studying the social customs of the people of Cameroon and very little humour. I felt that the journey was rather aimless. As I geographer, I found that the most interesting section was the chapter about the tragedy which had happened at Lake Nyos in 1986. A huge carbon dioxide cloud was released from the bottom of the volcanic lake and suffocated thousands of people in the lakeside villages. Fiction books set in Cameroon proved to be rarer than hen’s teeth, so I am grateful to Ms Murphy for providing me with this book but I won’t be reading about any of her other journeys if I can avoid it. I wish I had chosen one of Gerald Durrell’s accounts of his animal collecting expeditions in Cameroon instead. 3/10
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