Capetown, 1973, 1st edition. 304 pp, 20 color plates, maps. South Africa's largest mountain range. 'Lavish monograph including some climbing history and list of first ascents. The best overall work on the range.' Large-format hardcover, DJ, Near Fine.
This is the Zulu name, Quathlamba, for the jagged spires of the Drakensberg Mountains. In this South African classic, Reg Pearse tells the full story of this timeless mountain world, and the men who climb its high peaks. It is a story of high adventure and mystery, of tragedy and stark drama, and of man's unconquerable determination in the face of tremendous odds.
It is the definitive work on the Drakensberg. The tale is set against a backdrop of ever-changing beauty, where wild flowers paint the green hillsides, where untamed creatures of the wild roam the mountain slopes, and where great birds, in silent majesty, patrol the corridors of the sky.
Since Barrier of Spears was first published in 1973, there have been considerable moves towards conservation of the Drakensberg, aimed at preserving the integrity of the mountain fastnesses and their foothills. Knowledge has advanced and scientific names have changed. All these developments are incorporated in this fully revised edition.
Many more stunning colour photographs are included, and for the first time the text is illustrated with some five dozen black and white photographs of mountain pioneers. New maps in full colour are also included, for those who plan to explore the mighty Drakensberg. Climb these towering heights, and you enter another world, a world of ever-changing splendour, of basalt giants that stand as sentinels on the roof of Southern Africa. It is a world of unspoilt nature, where the cry of the martial eagle breaks the silence of distant peaks, where thunder roars and winds shriek through lonely crags like dragons in torment, where giant yellowwoods dream away their age-long sleep in hidden valleys and where soft snows fall silently to cap the soaring peaks in purest white.
Throughout Barrier of Spears, like a silver thread, runs the author's quiet conviction that - as in all life - it is not the final conquest of the virgin summit that is important, but rather the unending effort to achieve it. As Robert Louis Stevenson said: 'To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.'
