Lost Lion of Empire

by Edward Paice

"Ewarr Grogan, a gentleman adventurer dubbed 'the boldest and baddest of a bold, bad gang' of pioneering settlers in Kenya, was gifted far beyond the ordinary. Possessed of disarmingly good looks, magnetic charm, a formidable intellect and a near boundless ego, he was famed throughout the British Empire as one of the most brilliant - and controversial - figures of African colonial history." "By the age of twenty-two Grogan had been elected the youngest ever member of the Alpine Club and was a Matabele War veteran. But his prospects were far from certain when he fell in love with a young heiress and was required by her stepfather to prove himself a 'somebody' in order to win her hand. Grogan's response was typically unequivocal: he announced that he intended to be the first man to complete a south-to-north traverse of the African continent. In 1900, after almost three years of adventure and unimaginable hardship, he arrived triumphantly in Cairo, thus completing one of the most astonish