The intrepid adventurers in Mountain of the Moon

[The book is available at various online stores such as Rupa, Flipkart, Infibeam, Bookadda, Crossword, Linuxbazar (!!), and at Rediff.com.]

The author introduces us to four fictional adventurers besides his hero - Albuquerque, Jim Carter, Diego Alvarez and Attilio Gatti.

Curiously enough, two of these names have some historical significance, although far removed from the roles they played in Bibhutibhushan's story.

Diego Alvarez is one of the names of a tiny inhabited island in the South Atlantic Ocean. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

"The first recorded discovery of Gough Island was in 1505 or 1506 by the Portuguese explorer Gonçalo Álvares. Maps during the next three centuries named the island for him. On some later maps, this was given as Diego Alvarez." For more, read on here.

Attilio Gatti, on the other hand, was a real explorer! According to Wikipedia, "Gatti was among the last great safari expedition men. He led ten expeditions to Africa over 23 years before 1945. He became one of the Europeans to see the fabled Okapi, and the Bongo, a brown Lyre horned antelope with white stripes. He was an enthusiastic amateur radio operator, OQ5ZZ, and tried to operate from the Congo deep inland regions. He knew the Pygmy peoples of the Congo Regions very well. He wrote many books on his expeditions, including Killers All!, The New Africa, Here is Africa, Saranga the Pygmy, Africa is Adventure, Kamanda the African Boy, Great Mother Forest, Mediterranean Spotlights, Here is the Veld, Tom Toms in the Night, and South of the Sahara, (Robert McBride & Company 1945). Gatti's books contain invaluable anthropological material from his descriptions of the native peoples he met. Gatti also took good photos of Pygmys and Watussi. He met an important female python shaman. He became experienced with African magic and an entire world that no longer exists."



You'll find a list of his books here. This picture below is that of Attilio and Ellen Gatti.

Doubtless Bibhutibhushan must have read about Gatti's exploits in contemporary newspapers and journals.

My top 10 albums - Kind of Blue (No. 2)

Wikipedia says: "Though precise figures have been disputed, Kind of Blue has been described by many music writers not only as Davis's best-selling album, but as the best-selling jazz record of all time...The album's influence on music...has led music writers to acknowledge it as one of the most influential albums of all time. In 2002, it was one of fifty recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. In 2003, the album was ranked number 12 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time."

This was the first, the classic, one of the most recognizable covers of all time, shot by Jay Meisel.



When this was digitally remastered and reissued as a CD, the cover changed. The Miles Davis on the new cover was that of the late 1970s and 1980s. Not the successful young business in the Wall Street suit.



For the legal minds reading this, the original cover has a recent legal history, all to do with copyright. Read this.

There has always been a bit of controversy about the music - who wrote what, and should have been credited, but was not. This was mainly about the pianist, the great Bill Evans. Here's a note from the Bill Evans Website. "Bill Evans was the pianist in Miles Davis' group in 1958, and after a few tracks recorded and less than a year touring with the band, left to form his own trio and expand his career,. He was called back to play on the now legendary "Kind of Blue" album in the spring of 1959. According to many sources, Miles concept for the modally-conceived tunes of the sessions was indeed based on the playing of Evans. Bill, in fact, penned "Blue In Green" (though the writer's credit still usually goes to Miles, the Miles Davis Estate has finally admitted in 2002 on the official website , that Evans wrote the tune) and his piano sound is so much a part of the ambience of this historic album. "Kind of Blue" also featured the legendary musicians John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. ... These liner notes below, written by Bill Evans, appear on the original recording sleeve."

"There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere.

"The resulting pictures lack the complex composition and textures of ordinary painting, but it is said that those who see well find something captured that escapes explanation.

"This conviction that direct deed is the most meaningful reflections, I believe, has prompted the evolution of the extremely severe and unique disciplines of the jazz or improvising musician.

"Group improvisation is a further challenge. Aside from the weighty technical problem of collective coherent thinking, there is the very human, even social need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result. This most difficult problem, I think, is beautifully met and solved on this recording.

"As the painter needs his framework of parchment, the improvising musical group needs its framework in time,. Miles Davis presents here frameworks which are exquisite in their simplicity and yet contain all that is necessary to stimulate performance with sure reference to the primary conception.

"Miles conceived these settings only hours before the recording dates and arrived with sketches which indicated to the group what was to be played. Therefore, you will hear something close to pure spontaneity in these performances. The group had never played these pieces prior to the recordings and I think without exception the first complete performance of each was a "take.""

If you don't have KoB yet (!!???!) go out and get it. NOW!!

My top 10 albums - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (No. 1)

Paul was dead. Yes, he was dead, dead, dead!

As the Time Special wrote, "Paul McCartney never wrote "Maybe I'm Amazed." He never formed the band Wings. He never clashed with Yoko, became a vegetarian, or fathered any of his children. When Queen Elizabeth knighted him in 1997, she was actually knighting someone else. This is because, conspiracy-minded Beatlemaniacs say, Paul McCartney secretly died in 1966. Theorists claim the other Beatles covered up his death — hiring someone who looked like him, sang like him, and had the same jovial personality. But the guilt eventually got to them and they began hiding clues in their music. In the song "Taxman," George Harrison gave his "advice for those who die," meaning Paul. The entire Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album was awash with Paul-is-dead clues: the Beatles had formed a "new" band featuring a fictional member named Billy Shears — supposedly the name of Paul's replacement. The album contained John Lennon's "A Day in the Life," which had the lyrics "He blew his mind out in a car" and the recorded phrase "Paul is dead, miss him, miss him," which becomes evident only when the song is played backward. Lennon also mumbled, "I buried Paul" at the end of "Strawberry Fields Forever" (in interviews, Lennon said the phrase was actually "cranberry sauce" and denied the existence of any backward messages).

"Paul-is-dead believers think the Beatles accompanied these backward tape loops and veiled references to death with album covers that illustrated the loss of their friend. The original cover of 1966's Yesterday and Today album featured the Beatles posed amid raw meat and dismembered doll parts — symbolizing McCartney's gruesome accident. If fans placed a mirror in front of the Sgt. Pepper album cover, the words Lonely Hearts on the drum logo could be read as "1 ONE 1 X HE DIE 1 ONE 1." And of course, there's the Abbey Road cover, on which John, George and Ringo forwent all pretense and pretended to cross the street as a funeral procession. John wore all white, like a clergyman. Ringo, the mourner, dressed in black. George donned jeans, like a gravedigger. Paul wore no shoes (he didn't need them, because he was dead) and walked out of step with the others.

"If Paul is dead, then his imposter is still at large. He met and married Linda Eastman, with whom he had four children before losing her to breast cancer in 1998. He released a live album in 1993 called Paul Is Live (likely story), and produced more than 20 solo albums — and that's not even counting the ones released by Wings. Then he endured a horrible divorce from Heather Mills, which may have made him wishhe were dead — or, at least, were still Billy Shears. So who is the real McCartney? The world may never know."

The cover has always been a quiz to aficions, Beatles fans, rock music fans, and the just plain curious. For all who are interested, here is the key to identifying the people pictured.

1. Sri Yukteswar (Indian Guru) 2. Aleister Crowley (black magician) 3. Mae West 4. Lenny Bruce 5. Stockhausen (modern German composer) 6. W.C. Fields 7. Carl Jung (psychologist) 8. Edgar Allen Poe 9. Fred Astaire 10. Merkin (American artist) 12. Huntz Hall (Bowery Boy) 13. Simon Rodia (creater of Watts Towers) 14. Bob Dylan 15. Aubrey Beardsly (Victorian artist) 16. Sir Robert Peel (Police pioneer) 17. Aldous Huxley (philosopher) 18. Dylan Thomas (Welsh poet) 19. Terry Southern (author) 20. Dion (American pop singer) 21. Tony Curtis 22. Wallace Berman (Los Angeles artist) 23. Tommy Handley (wartime comedian) 24. Marilyn Monroe 25. William Buroughs (author) 26. Mahavatar Babaji (Indian Guru) 27. Stan Laurel 28. Richard Lindner (New York artist)29. Oliver Hardy 30. Karl Marx 31. H.G. Wells 32. Paramhansa Yogananda (Indian Guru) 33. Stuart Sutcliffe 35. Max Muller 37. Marlon Brando 38. Tom Mix (cowboy film star) 39. Oscar Wilde 40. Tyrone Power 41. Larry Bell (modern painter) 42. Dr. Livingstone 43. Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) 44. Stephen Crane (American writer) 45. Issy Bonn (comedian) 46. George Bernard Shaw 47. Albert Stubbins (Liverpool footballer) 49. Lahiri Mahasaya (Indian Guru) 50. Lewis Carol 51. Sonny Liston (boxer) 52 - 55. The Beatles (in wax) 57. Marlene Dietrich 58. Diana Dors 59. Shirley Temple 60. Bobby Breen (singing prodigy) 61. T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia)

This has also spawned admirers who have flattered by imitation. Here are two of the best known:





This is appropriately called The Yellow Album!

The Art of the Semi-Autobiographical Novel

Not my own work, I hasten to add. But brilliant nonetheless. I don't know where it was originally posted - it came to me via a friend. Read on.
==================================================================
To assuage our interest and close the circle, we decided to follow up with a list of a few of our favorite semi-autobiographical novels — that is, novels wherein at least one character is based on the author, and usually containing a plot that revolves around the author’s true-life experiences. Click through to check out ten of our favorite semi-autobiographical novels, from the barely-veiled straight autobiographies to the masterful collages of life and fiction. We know there are hundreds and hundreds of these, so please chime in and let us know your own favorite semi-autobiographies in the comments!

We the Animals, Justin Torres

Justin Torres’s unbelievably exquisite debut novel could be described as a collection of searing anecdotes, gradually easing the narrator away from his collective self-awareness as part of three brothers (“We were six snatching hands, six stomping feet; we were brothers, boys, three little kings locked in a feud for more”) to the painful, necessary schism into “they” and “I.” He admits that he drew much of the story and characters from his own life, and when we saw him read, he laughed large at the “how autobiographical is it really?” question and shrugged, but the more he spoke, the more he seemed like his narrator. “Your consciousness is informed by your experience,” he said. “It’s just how the mind works.”

Black Swan Green, David Mitchell 

Though you may not know it (unless you’ve read this novel), celebrated author David Mitchell suffers from a stammer. In an article he wrote celebrating The King’s Speech for being the first film to accurately portray the speech defect as he experiences it, he wrote, “Despite growing up in a much saner family than the Duke of York’s, my open and kind parents and I discussed my speech impediment exactly never, and this “don’t mention the stammer” policy was continued by friends and colleagues into my thirties. I’d probably still be avoiding the subject today had I not outed myself by writing a semi-autobiographical novel, Black Swan Green, narrated by a stammering 13 year old.”

Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury

Though not his most famous work, Dandelion Wine is a beautiful, magical rumination on boyhood and the myth of the eternal summer. Recently, just before Bradbury’s 91st birthday, it was announced that Black Swan producer Mike Medavoy would produce a film version of the novel in conjunction with Bradbury. Of the project, Bradbury said, “This is the best birthday gift I could ask for. Today, I have been reborn! Dandelion Wine is my most deeply personal work and brings back memories of sheer joy as well as terror. This is the story of me as a young boy and the magic of an unforgettable summer which still holds a mystical power over me.” [Ray is one of my absolute favourite writers and this is one of my absolute favourite books by him - Jayanta.]

The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

It’s well known that Sylvia Plath’s only novel, originally published under the pseudonym “Victoria Lucas” in 1963, is based on Plath’s own descent into clinical depression. Like her protagonist, Esther Greenwood, Plath had a magazine internship in college, met with a similar mentor, was rejected from a writing course she desperately wanted to take, and fell into a deep, lingering depression. Unlike Esther, however, Plath was unable to pull herself back into the world, and committed suicide about a month after the book’s UK publication.

Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin

“Mountain,” Baldwin once said, “is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else.” The book, based in part on the author’s own experiences as a teenage preacher in a small church in Harlem, is a fantastic, tense tale of a 14-year-old boy’s spiritual awakening and moral maturation.

A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway’s semi-autobiographical novel of World War I marked a turn towards the romantic for him — though perhaps everyone gets a little romantic about what they see in their own life. Many of the characters — Catherine Barkley, Helen Ferguson, the priest — are based on real-life people, and of course Henry is based on Hemingway himself and his own doomed romance when he served in the Italian campaigns of the First World War.

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre was originally published in London in 1847 as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography with the pen name “Currer Bell.” Though the autobiographical subtitle was dropped when Brontë dropped the pen name (a sort of obvious correlation there, if you ask us), scholars have found many similarities between the story and Brontë’s own life. Like Jane, Brontë was an orphan sent to live in a terrible boarding school, and it was there her two elder sisters died, rather than just a friend, as in Jane Eyre.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce

Perhaps the most famous semi-autobiographical novel, Joyce’s Bildungsroman follows Stephen Dedalus as he begins to buck the traditions of his Irish Catholic childhood, before finally taking leave of Ireland to pursue his ambitions as an artist. Many editions of the novel have pictures of Joyce on the cover — no need to pretend to model this Dedalus character after anyone else (except of course the mythical character of Daedalus).

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

Alcott’s novel, which follows the lives and experiences of four sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March, is based on her own experience growing up with three sisters and set in the same house where it was written, Orchard House inConcord, Massachusetts. Alcott is Jo, of course — who else?

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson’s notorious drug-addled novel was based on based on two actual drug-addled trips to Las Vegas that Thompson took (with his attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta, of course) in March and April 1971, while reporting for Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated. Supposedly, most of what would become his most famous novel was scribbled frantically in his notebook at the tail end of each of these trips. In cases like this, Thompson’s famed adage bears repeating: “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.” Yes they have. [And Ralph Steadman's drawings are magical! - Jayanta]

10 Famous Literary Characters and Their Real-Life Inspirations

Not my work - got this from here. You really have to go to the link above - the first page of the original post is reproduced here.
==================================================================
We all know truth is stranger than fiction, and some things (and people) are just too good to have been made up. We’ve already shown you quirky cartoon characters based on real people and though we imagine there are many more life-to-literature adaptations than life-to-cartoon, we’ve decided to continue the trend and pick some of our favorite famous literary characters inspired by real-life people. For the most part, we’ve skipped the autobiographical inspirations, mostly because there are too many to count, though many writers would probably tell you there’s a little bit of themselves in every character they write, so in some ways that distinction is a losing battle. Click through to read out list of ten famous literary characters and their real-life counterparts, and let us know your own picks for your favorite truth-inspired heroes and heroines in the comments!

Tintin — Palle Huld

The 15-year-old Danish writer and actor’s 1928 voyage around the world, documented in his book Around the World in 44 days by Palle reportedly inspired Hergé’s Tintin, himself a young jet-setting fellow. As far as we can tell, Snowy was just a stroke of pure genius invention.

One more review

Entitled "BLOOD DIAMOND", this review appeared in The Statesman, Kolkata, on Oct 2, 2011.

"I first ran into Chander Pahar, the Bibhuti Bhushan Bandyopadhyay original when I was helping my nephew with his Bengali. What struck me immediately was the resemblance to Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines, a swashbuckling novel that Bandyopadhyay must have been familiar with. However, while Alan Quartermain is a great white hunter ready with his gun, Shankar, the main protagonist of the Mountain of the Moon is no such hero. Shankar is in his twenties, comes from the lower middle classes, and is determined to find at alternate exciting way of life to the one that he knows in rural Bengal. A neighbour finds him a job in Africa so he has the chance to indulge his dreams.

What he discovers is a world ‘red in tooth and claw’ filled with man-eating lions, live volcanoes and haunted by the mysterious, deadly three toed Bunyip and the Dingonek. The translator of Mountain of the Moon, Jayanta Sengupta, points out that apart from King Solomon’s Mines, Bandyopadhyay was probably familiar with J Patterson’s Maneaters of Tsavo. Though I placed the Bunyip in Australia, the Dingonek apparently did exist in African legend and was some kind of fearsome almost dinosaur with horns the head of a crocodile and the body of a hippo.

Shankar’s adventures in Africa are of the thrill a minute kind guaranteed to keep readers young and old compulsively turning the pages. Each chapter leads on to another encounter and people die, but the narrative continues without any false sentiment.

Like the great 19^th century writers, Bandyopadhyay creates a ‘Dark Continent’ a blend of fact and fiction where Portuguese adventurers and lost treasure abounds and danger threatens at every step. Despite this inhospitable environment, Shankar sets out in search of a cave filled with diamonds located in the Mountain of the Moon.

The wonder of it is that Bandyopadhyay had never been to Africa and the story came out of his researches with his own descriptions of the stillness of the night and the hanging stars brought in. That in no way detracts from the fascination of his tale and the confidence with which he tells his story. It’s a very different one from the one he tells in his Apu stories that gave Satyajit Ray the script for Pather Panchali and Aparajito.

Jayanta Sengupta attempts to keep to the flavour of the original time by using phrases like ‘land of the Faerie’. However, early on in the book, he does retain words like ‘bedi’ and ‘pratima’ while describing a small ruined temple near Shankar’s home. These words could, one feels, have been given English equivalents to make the book accessible to non-Indian readers.

The other issue, which comes into the quibbling zone, is the matter of the title, Mountain of the Moon. The Mountains of the Moon with an ‘s’ are supposed to be the source of the White Nile and have been mentioned in ancient treatises. It’s a range familiar through legend to Africa hands and would certainly have been familiar to Bandyopadhyay. The Bengali word for mountain, ‘pahar’ allows for number flexibility. Therefore perhaps, Mountains of the Moon would have been a more satisfying sounding title."

This was written by the well-known novelist, Anjana Basu, author of books like "Curses in Ivory", "Black Tongue", "Rhythms of Darkness" and others. You may want to catch up with her work here. 

Incidentally, if any reader can send me a link or a scan of the review as it appeared in the Statesman, I would be most grateful.

[The book is available at various online stores such as Rupa, Flipkart, Infibeam, Bookadda, Crossword, Linuxbazar (!!), and at Rediff.]

The rivers of Mountain of the Moon

The reader is taken on a short journey down some rivers in Africa - the Congo, the Guai, the Orange, the Wai and a few others. I couldn't find the Guai - it could be a figment of the author's imagination. I found two Wais - one in Maharashtra, India, and the other in Papua New Guinea.

But the others are very well known. The Orange River, otherwise known as the Gariep River, Groote River or Senqu River is the longest river in South Africa. It rises in the Drakensberg mountains in Lesotho, flowing westwards through South Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. The river forms part of the international borders between South Africa and Namibia and between South Africa and Lesotho, as well as several provincial borders within South Africa. Although the river does not pass through any major cities, it plays an important role in the South African economy by providing water for irrigation, as well as hydroelectric power. The river was named by Robert Jacob Gordon after the Dutch Royal House.

The Congo River (also known as the Zaire River) is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of 230 m (750 ft). It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon. Additionally, its overall length of 4,700 km (2,920 mi) makes it the ninth longest river.

Its drainage basin covers 4,014,500 square kilometres (1,550,000 sq mi). The Congo's discharge at its mouth ranges from 23,000 cubic metres per second (810,000 cu ft/s) to 75,000 cubic metres per second (2,600,000 cu ft/s), with an average of 41,000 cubic metres per second (1,400,000 cu ft/s).

The river and its tributaries flow through the Congo rainforest, the second largest rain forest area in the world, second only to the Amazon Rainforest in South America. The river also has the second-largest flow in the world, behind the Amazon; the third-largest drainage basin of any river, behind the Amazon and Río de la Plata rivers; and is one of the deepest rivers in the world, at depths greater than 230 m (750 ft). Because large sections of the river basin lie above and below the equator, its flow is stable, as there is always at least one part of the river experiencing a rainy season. (All these facts are from Wikipedia).

The drainage basin of the Congo River is pretty impressive.

Legendary monsters of Africa

The Bunyip in Chander Pahar gains in mystery since the author never gives a description - he leaves us readers to imagine the size and ferocity of the beast. Africa, as befits the Dark Continent, has many legendary beasts, just as the Himalayas can claim the Yeti, and Pacific Northwest of the USA has its Bigfoot.

There's the Dingonek - Wikipedia describes it as a scaly, scorpion tailed, saber toothed cryptid seen in Africa. Hailing from the Congolese jungles (primarily in the nation formerly known as Zaire), the Dingonek is yet another in a long line of West African cryptids – such as the Chipekwe, the Jago-nini and the Emela-ntouka. At the Brackfontein Ridge in South Africa is a cave painting of an unknown creature that fits the description of the dingonek, right down to its walrus-like tusks. Said to dwell in the rivers and lakes of western Africa, the Dingonek has been described as being approximately 12-feet in length, with a squarish head, a long horn, saber-like canines – which has resulted in its nickname the “Jungle Walrus” – and a tail complete with a bony, dart-like appendage, which is reputed to be able to secrete a deadly poison. This creature is also said to be covered head to toe in a scaly, mottled epidermis, which has been likened to the prehistoric-looking Asian anteater known as the pangolin. The description by John Alfred Jordan, an explorer who actually shot at this unidentified monster in the River Maggori in Kenya in 1907, claimed this scale-covered creature was as big as 18 feet long and had reptilian claws, a spotted back, long tail, and a big head out of which grew large, curved, walrus-like tusks. It is said to be exceedingly territorial and has been known to kill any hippos, crocodiles and even unwary fishermen, who have had the misfortune of wandering too close to their aquatic nests. This may (or may not be) a picture of a Dingonek.

There are numerous reports of a strange, horned creature along the west coast of central Africa. French zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans discusses some of them in his 1959 book On the Track of Unknown Animals under the category of "water elephant" and "forest rhinoceros."

In December, 1919, the London Daily Mail published a letter from C.G. James, who had lived in what is now Zambia. He reported on an enormous beast with a single ivory horn living in the waters of Lakes Bangweulu and the surrounding lakes and swamps. James said this animal was called "Chipekwe" by the natives. The same creature is also mentioned in both Millais' 1924 book Far Away Up the Nile, and Hughes' 1933 volume Eighteen Years on Lake Bangweulu. The latter describes Wa-Ushi tribesmen actually killing such a creature along the Luapula River that leads to Lake Bangweulu. They detailed how its smooth body was armed with a single horn fixed like that of a rhinoceros, but composed of smooth white, highly-polished ivory. Hughes tells of a hippo that was said to be killed by a Chipekwe. The throat was torn out. (Hughes, 1933, p. 146.) Indigenous peoples near Lake Edward in Zaire, call this same creature "Irizima" and refer to it as a "gigantic hippopotamus with the horns of a rhinoceros on its head."

In Mali the Bambara people sculpture iron figurines of a three-horned creature with long points coming off the neck much like the ceratopsian dinosaur Chasmosaurus. (See Ancient Depictions in Room 1 of the Exhibit Hall.) In Cameroon the Baka pygmies identify pictures of a Triceratops with an animal they call the Ngoubou. They report it being big as an ox, possessing a neck frill, and sporting from one to four horns. Apparently the mature male has the largest frill. Perhaps this is the same species as the Emela-ntouka in the Congo and the observers there merely saw the single-horned variety or younger creatures. The Ngoubou is said to inhabit the savannas along the Boumba and Sanga river where it is known to fight with elephants. French cryptozoologist Michel Ballot's 2004 photograph (left) of a native's wood carving representation of Ngoubou bears some resemblance to the picture of the Emela-ntouka from Roy Mackal's 1987 book A Living Dinosaur. This could be the Emela-ntouka.

This, perhaps, could be the Chipekwe.

The Bunyip of Chander Pahar actually originated in Australia! Here's Wikipedia on this beast: The bunyip, or kianpraty, is a large mythical creature from Aboriginal mythology, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes. The origin of the word bunyip has been traced to the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia language of Aboriginal people of South-Eastern Australia. However, the bunyip appears to have formed part of traditional Aboriginal beliefs and stories throughout Australia, although its name varied according to tribal nomenclature. In his 2001 book, writer Robert Holden identified at least nine regional variations for the creature known as the bunyip across Aboriginal Australia. Various written accounts of bunyips were made by Europeans in the early and mid-19th century, as settlement spread across the country." This is what the creature could have looked like to an artist who drew this in the 1890s.

The Matabele, the Masai, the Zulu

In his journey with Diego Alvarez, Shankar gets to meet members of a number of African tribes - Matabele, Zulu, Masai.

The Matabele are now known as the Ndebele people. There's an interesting write-up on them here. And this is an interesting picture from R. H. Kiernan, Baden-Powell, 1939.

The Masai are probably among the best known peoples of Africa. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about them. Photographer Osa Johnson and her husband Martin were responsible for introducing much of the world to the exotic wonder of Africa. This is a photograph of her with Masai women, taken in the 1930s.

This picture is a classic - I don't know who the photographer is, but I always dreamed of an African hunter looking for prey in exactly this pose.

Wikipedia tells us a lot about the Zulu people, the Zulu language, and the Zulu kingdom. The most famous king of the Zulu people was King Shaka. The picture below is, I understand, the only known drawing of the king.

The famous folk singer Pete Seeger believed that the well-known song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is actually about Shaka. Here's Pete Seeger and The Weavers singing this song at the Carnegie Hall in New York, at their reunion concert.