"Sand Rivers" is a strange, bittersweet, autumnal book based on a safari into the Selous Game Reserve in southern Tanzania, one of the last great wildernesses left on earth. Once again we have a clear triumph from Peter Matthiessen, who has delivered so many that I am reminded of D. H. Lawrence's insistence that the only true aristocracy on earth is that of consciousness. Whenever Mr. Matthiessen publishes a book, we learn what new lid of consciousness he has popped through. (p. 1)

On its surface, "Sand Rivers" is a record of a trek, a march back through time with the deeply disturbing resonance of the future hanging in the air like a death announcement. Mr. Matthiessen is guided by a white Kenyan, Brian Nicholson, the former warden of Selous…. Selous is a "reserve," not to be confused with such famous game parks as the Serengeti or Ngorongoro. There are no accommodations or conveniences for tourists in Selous, an area of some 22,000 square miles … The reserve has an estimated mammal population of 750,000 creatures, a density of animal life that renders all comparisons fatuous….

"Sand Rivers" moves from natural history to the novel to some sort of majestic fable. After providing considerable historical background … and describing a succession of base camps, Mr. Matthiessen narrates how he and Mr. Nicholson moved off on foot with a half-dozen bearers for a 10-day hike into a totally trackless area. They are a motley group, with Mr. Matthiessen and Mr. Nicholson diametrically opposed on every issue on earth except the survival of this wilderness. Brian Nicholson is the sort of man who makes the most battle-scarred warriors of the movies (say John Wayne) seem like self-indulgent whiners. Mr. Nicholson's racist politics are not attractive, but it has been largely through his efforts that the Selous persists into the present. Part of the fascination and charm of the book is a result of the tensions between the two men….

I underlined nearly a third of the book as quotable: the prose has a glistening, sculpted character to it, especially in the last half….

Finally, as with most of Mr. Matthiessen's work, the sense of beauty and mystery is indelible; not that you retain the specific information on natural history, but that you have had your brain, and perhaps the soul, prodded, urged, moved into a new dimension. (p. 26)