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OK, John, I'll 'bite'.  I really must find out more about Donald Mackenzie.  I mean, how nutty can you get - unless he was being exceptionally prescient, and forecasting rising sea levels over a century before we started to get all het up about melting ice caps, global waming and rising sea levels.  But we're still only talking abour rising sea levels of centimetres, and Timbuktu  lies at an elevation of 261 metres.  But, to be fair, the Suez Canal, dug through more-or-less similar desert is 100-odd miles long - and in Britain we were about to make  Manchester accessible to deep-sea ships (opened 1894), so why shouldn't Victorian engineers dig a canal 2, 3 or 400 miles long?   In all seriousness, it's one of the things I admire about our Victorian forebears - their total conviction that their technology could master any problem which it faced.  But assuming that a canal to Timbuktu would have been a steady rise, from sea-level to 262 metres, I'm not sure where he was going to get the water from, to keep his summit level supplied with water.
    As regards the lunatic line, I suspect that bit of doggerel post-dates any interest Kipling might have had when the tale was written in 1889 - I mean, British 'official' invlovement with Kenya only started in 1888, a scant year before Kipling wrote the tale which started this off.
    But it's fun.
    Alastair Wilson
On 23/06/2018 22:40, John Walker wrote:
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Dear Leslie,

Donald Mackenzie was the man who invented Port Victoria. He was going to flood the Sahara, so that ships could sail to Timbuktu.

(That last sentence should get someone else to chip in to this discussion).

And the railway buffs should be eager to tell you about the Uganda Railway:

What is the use of it, none can conjecture,
What it will carry, there is none can define,
And in spite of George Curzon's superior lecture,
It is clearly naught but a lunatic line.

There is bound to be much Wiki on this.

AGW,

John






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Mailtrack 06/23/18, 10:39:09 PM

On Sat, Jun 23, 2018 at 10:16 PM Leslie Katz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Many thanks for taking the trouble to reply John.

On 2018-06-23 03:52 PM, John Walker wrote:
Dear Leslie,

Like you, I had always associated Nyanza Docks with Port Florence.
"Always" is a bit of stretch in my case--I'd never heard of either as recently as twelve hours ago!
We are not talking about a great trading place here, any more than Charing Cross, but simply the kind of spot where you can 'wait at the Nyzana Docks till he comes'... oddly enough, someone recently, talking about a new freeport at Kisumu used the modern phrase; a 'logistic hub'.... with a new rail link.

Then, of course, your note set me to wondering whether the local name for a Dock in Woolwich was being used, but the street John mentions is a very long way across Plumsted Common from the water.

So, I was still thinking Port Florence fits, if you allow for the closeness of Port Victoria, which had a classical position as the end point for some caravan routes.
But not, as far as I can tell, the end point of a railway, which Collins associated with the place in his article.

And, by chance, I came across the 'Victoria Nyanza' link, on old Admiralty charts, and even as the name of a trading vessel.


So now my vote is for Port Victoria, with a nod to Mackenzie.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand the reference to Mackenzie.

I know this is revealing my almost complete ignorance about Kipling, but I'm not aware that he was ever in Kenya. If he wasn't, I wonder how he came to think of mentioning some docks there as one of the great doors of the world, along with Charing Cross Station and (effectively) Port Said.

Thank you again,

Leslie



All the best,

John



. 


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Mailtrack 06/23/18, 9:41:19 PM

On Sat, Jun 23, 2018 at 6:31 PM Leslie Katz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
In "The Limitations of Pambe Serang", Kipling identified "three great doors in the world where, if you stand long enough, you shall meet any one you wish." One of those doors was said to be "the Nyanza Docks".

At http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_limitspambe_notes.htm, I found the following note: "Nyanza Docks there are no docks of this name in London, but there is a Nyanza Street in Woolwich, London S.E.18."

JP Collins, in an article in (1939) 7 Kipling Journal 8, locates "the Nyanza Docks" in Africa and says that it links a water route with a railway.

On the shores of Lake Victoria, there's the city of Kisumu, Kenya (formerly Port Florence). It has a rail link to Mombasa, Kenya, which is on the ocean.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyanza, nyanza is the Bantu word for lake, including Victoria Nyanza (Lake Victoria).

Doing the best I can, I'm guessing that the Nyanza Docks to which Kipling was referring were in Port Florence.

Since I know nothing about Kipling, I could well have this all wrong.

I'd appreciate any guidance.

Leslie

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