Sultan to Sultan

First published in 1892, M. French-Sheldon's book describes her 1891 expedition that took her from the court of the Sultan of Zanzibar to the Mount Kilimanjaro region of East Africa. Unlike most women travellers of the period, the American-born French-Sheldon dressed extravagantly on her 1000-mile expedition, greeting African chiefs or "sultans" dressed as a "White Queen" - in a long white court dress bedecked with large jewels and wearing a waist-length blonde wig and sparkling tiaras on her head. Consistently portraying herself as "alone", French-Sheldon was accompanied by a retinue of African porters, numbering over 140 men, whom she claimed to control through the whip, the pistol and the injunction "Noli me tangere" (touch me not) which emblazoned a banner which she flew from her walking stick. This African adventure narrative is accompanied by a critical introduction that explores the cultural context within which this text appeared and the political implications of the "imperial feminism" that French-Sheldon espoused.