100 Years Ago: February 1925

[George Thomas Wilson]

100 Years Ago: February 1925

This is the 121st Entry in my set of Reviews of 100-Year-Old National Geographic Magazines.

Cover courtesy of Scott Shier

The first, and only, article in this month’s issue is entitled “Cairo to Cape Town, Overland:” and was written by Felix Shay. It has a subtitle that appears on the cover as well as internally which reads: “An Adventurous Journey of 135 Days, Made by an American Man and His Wife, Through the Length of the African Continent.” The article contains one-hundred-two black-and-white photographs, of which twenty-one are full-page in size. It also contains a sketch map of Africa showing the author’s route on page 128.

Sketch Map courtesy of Philip Riviere

Since the previous spring [1924], the Shays had been adventuring from the high Inca-Andes to the plains of Mongolia, from the South Seas to the border of Afghanistan. They completed their tour of India in the intense heat, amid an outbreak of plague. They boarded the P. & O. Steamship Mantua at Bombay and headed to Port Said. The couple desired to see inside Africa. In America, two years before, the author sought information on the Cairo to Cape Town Route overland. When he had completed his inquiry, Africa was still the “Dark Continent” to him. They arrived at Port Said after crossing the Indian Ocean and passing through the Suez Canal. Maps or no maps, equipment or no equipment they were going to Cape Town overland through Central Africa. Authorities in Port Said and in Cairo advised against the trip – sandstorms, rainy season, and traveling through tsetse fly infested jungle. They said, “Don’t try it with a woman. You will never get through.” From Cairo to Cape Town was some 5,000 miles as the crow flies. As the Shays traveled the way they had to do, the route totaled twice the distance from New York to California. Transcontinental railroads in Africa were figments of the fertile imagination. Cecil Rhodes’ All-Red Route was still but a red line on the map. At Port Said, they bought railroad tickets to Khartoum, in Sudan. Since they planned to sail south on the Nile from Khartoum, they were told to wait until winter, for the river to be higher. Instead, they booked for Cairo and Khartoum. [See: “Along the Nile, Through Egypt and the Sudan,” October 1922; and “The Barrage of the Nile,” February 1910, in the National Geographic Magazine.] Cairo was no longer an Eastern city. It was a cosmopolitan city with a strong French flavor. The English, until recently, occupied Egypt, but the French had captured the Egyptian imagination.

In Cairo, the couple were permitted to study maps of Sudan and Uganda. They came away confident for the first lap of the journey. They got their permits to enter Sudan and called on the Belgium Consul to secure a visa for the Belgium Congo. Then they called on the British Consulate for visas for Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika, Rhodesia, and the Union of South Africa. They sketched an arbitrary route on a map and put a theoretical schedule to paper. The schedule had them in Cape Town in 73 days. Ultimately, it took 135 days. Cairo was a familiar scene to the Shays, so they moved south on the second day. The train with the international sleeper left Cairo at 8:30 p. m. for Luxor. It arrived at 9 the next morning. At Luxor they crossed the Nile in a small Arab dhow. The donkeys were waiting to take them to Tutankhamen’s tomb. [See: “At the Tomb of Tutankhamen,” May 1923, in the National Geographic Magazine.] The rode towards the historic hills. The hills beyond the Nile were barren, crumbly rock. Where water touched Egypt, there was a garden; where no water touched, a barren waste, desolation itself. Their road led through cane fields and watermelon patches. The Valley of the Kings was a crater-like depression behind the first range of hills. The walls were limestone, steep and abrupt. For centuries, desert sands had swept down over the rim of the valley and, in some places, almost filled it. [See: “Reconstructing Egypt’s History,” “The Resurrection of Ancient Egypt,” “The Sacred Ibis Cemetery and Jackal Catacombs of Abydos,” September 1913, National Geographic Magazine.] Most of the tombs of the ancient Egyptian kings were on the same level, but Tutankhamen’s tomb was on a lower level, directly under the tomb of Rameses VI.

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Most of the tombs of the kings had been robbed long years before, and much treasure stolen. Even the walls of the tombs were mutilated by vandals who cut out the hieroglyphics and sold them to dealers and collectors. The opening into the tomb of Tutankhamen was in the floor of the valley. When the couple arrived, the opening to the tomb was walled in and Egyptian guards were stationed by it. Preparations were being made to remove and transport the treasure. In one of the royal tombs, they saw the mummy of a king, Amenophis II. They climbed up the steep side walls from the valley to meet their donkeys and went to the resthouse for lunch. Later, in the cool afternoon, they visited the ancient social center of Queen Hatshepsut, the Blue Lady. Mrs. Shay saw a blue bead in the ruins and searched until she found five more. She searched some more and found three green beads and four red ones. They headed their donkeys toward the Nile. Another day they visited the tombs of lesser personalities; another, Karnak; and another, Luxor itself. The fourth morning, in a little white train, they moved toward Khartoum through the desert. The sun became hotter, the ride grew dustier, the desert became more and more like a desert. Occasionally, they stopped at a railway station set in the waste. Late in the afternoon, they reached Shellal, and transferred to a boat on the Nile for Halfa, whence stretched the railway to Khartoum. The Nile trip from Shellal to Halfa lasted from 5 o’clock one afternoon to noon the second day. For half the distance to Halfa the desert was saffron-colored, sienna, burnt orange; but at noon, it was golden. The desert Arabs lived in desperate squalor, on the fringe. The desert flies were bothersome. They stayed where they were until they were killed.

They saw the sun rise over the desert. One moment there was a soft haze; the next, a bright, hot sun assaulted the land. Along the shore small palm trees grew delicately out of the water itself and gently waved green branches at them. Near at hand an Arab mud village slept. Swarms of gnats moved down from nowhere to settle on their hair. The only animals they saw in the desert were lean, white camels. They browsed and grazed, apparently on nothing, or reclined on sand hot enough to burn. The banks of the Nile were a panorama of history. They passed Philae, the ancient shrine of Isis, which since the building of the Aswan Dam was submerged half the year. They passed a Roman fort high on a rocky shore, from the time of Anthony and Cleopatra. When they came to a Temple of the Sun, they were given the opportunity to land, and they entered it cavernous depths. They passed Kitchner’s camp, where he equipped the British army to subdue a religious zealot and his fanatics. The train from Haifa to Khartoum was scheduled to leave 1:30 p. m. one day and arrive at Khartoum at 4:00 the next afternoon. They arrived 18 hours late due to a massive sandstorm. Khartoum was a welcome sight. Luxor, Aswan, Halfa, Omdurman, and Khartoum were river-bank villages. Because of their fame, one thought of them as cities. Khartoum played at being the capital of the Sudan; Omdurman, just across the Nile was an all-mud native village covering a vast area. The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan proper was a country of 1,000,000 square miles with a population of 6,000,000. Khartoum was 1,000 miles south of Cairo. This was the frontier, the end of civilization. The little boat pointing up the Nile was not due to sail for eight days. They needed, and secured the tents, camp beds, and other equipment needed.

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They were ready, but since the boat was not yet due to depart, they took the opportunity to explore Khartoum and Omdurman. The doctors at the Omdurman hospital invited them over for a day. After Omdurman, they visited the tomb of the Mad Mahdi, which was dismantled. Kitchner feared it would become a shrine. The Gordon Hotel, where they stayed, faced on the public square. There was no grass; there was only sand. While they were there, the noontime temperature averaged about 115 degrees F. So frequent and so violent were the sandstorms in April and May that the Gordan Hotel had ceased trying to combat them. They blew through window casings and scattered sand over the rooms and corridors. With evenings came relief. A gentle breeze blew from the Nile. Off across the square, tom-toms beat perpetually, and white figures of dervishes danced to the wild music. During Ramadan, every day was a fast and every night, a festival. One morning they remembered that no seasoned traveler ever went into Africa without something to read. They went to the bookstore and purchased four ancient copies of the National Geographic and an issue of Vanity Fair. With permits secured and equipment packed, with special advice written down, they were safely aboard when the little boat shoved off up the White Nile toward Rejaf. For three of four days after they left Khartoum, there was still the desert for company. The heat was insufferable. There was no ice on board, and food was purchased daily at native villages. They lived on eggs, chickens, lamb, vegetables, melons, and tinned foods. The desert behind them, they entered the Sudan proper. The land was fertile and level to the horizon. Thousands of cattle grazed along the shore. About 160 miles up the river they passed Abba Island, where the Mad Mahdi once worked as a boatman.

Soon the characteristics of the natives changed. So far, they had seen only Arabs and mixed breeds. Here they met Negroes and Negro-and-Arab half-castes. The Negroes were genuine savages; they wore feathers in their hair and rings in their noses. Two interesting black tribes were the Shilluks, who lived on the west bank on the Nile, and the Dinkas, who lived on the east. Both averaged about seen feet in height. They were thin, and stood like cranes, on one leg drawn up. The Shilluks wore two huge mats of hair, one on each pole of their head. The Dinkas decorated their woolly pates with gay-colored feathers. Most of them smeared their bodies with ashes to keep off the mosquitoes. The men were the beauties; the women did the work. Some of those dandies wore tight cooper bracelets round their wrists and rings. The women wore only a strip of dun-colored cotton. Many of them stood naked to the waist. There were some 800 languages and dialects spoken among the more than a hundred million blacks in Africa. In many sections, languages and customs changed with each 50 miles. These particular Nile blacks were shiftless, vain, noisy, and warlike. Their villages were clusters of grass huts, like gigantic beehives. They own fine herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats. They ate the sheep and goats, but used the cattle as currency. So many cows bought a wife. Wealth was counted thus. After the first five days up the Nile they approached the big game country. Hundreds of Hippos splashed in the shallows. Water bucks, gazelles, and antelopes spotted the landscape. There was an infinite variety of horned animals. On every bank they saw crocodiles sunning themselves. They saw storks and cranes, herons, hawks and eagles, and many varieties of ducks, pelicans, and scores of birds for which they had no name.

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The country so far was flat, level, and dotted with trees. The soil was black and rich and the natives lived easily. The author had never seen so many or such a variety of insects. They observed two or three families of mosquitoes; white ants; spiders from the size of pinheads to the size of a dollar; large green flies, cattle flies, horseflies – and flies; gnats and sandflies; dragonflies; ticks and dozens of varieties of grasshoppers. At night, natives held torches over a hole in the ground. The light attracted thousands of flying ants, which were scorched and dropped in. When the hole was filled the feast began. The natives ate them. The Shays passed into the Sudd, the high-grass country, whose swamps grew the papyrus grass from which was made the writing material of the ancient Egyptians. Those papyrus growths once blocked the channel of the Nile and made navigation impossible. In the high grass they fell in with a herd of some twelve elephants, within 30 yards of them. When the elephants saw the boat, they ambled off. They were three days passing through the Sudd. Going up the Nile was an adventure in navigation, for there were numerous shifting sandbars. Once or twice a day they ran into the bank while negotiating a narrow turn. That part of the river’s course was extremely tortuous. When they reached a native village, they plowed into the mud and put out the gangplank. At those waystations, they lost their fellow passengers, one by one. On the Nile, they met the rains blowing down from up country. They were extremely violent. Before and after those storms there were marvelous sky effects. There, they began taking their daily dose of quinine. They met savages on the river in tree-trunk canoes. They put ashore and stood and stared. They also saw natives wading and fishing with spears.

One night, just as the dark was descended on them, the boat stopped in a clearing. At that point an English missionary came alongside in a big war canoe manned by 20 native paddlers. The canoe he had brought overland from the Congo on wheels. There were no trees in the Sudan of sufficient size to make those great boats. With it he travelled the principal rivers and side streams and visited the inland blacks. Toward the end of the sixteenth day, they nosed again into the mud bank. That was Rejaf! Rejaf rested on a hill, a typical Nile River station. The official in charge was an Egyptian. He lined up 100 black boys and permitted the couple to select 22. They spoke no English, and they could not cook, but they could carry loads. They were willing to go half the distance to Nimule, then the couple was to join a safari. The official marked on the map the resthouses to his boundary. After that, they “went blind” and trusted to luck in Africa. At the far side of the Nile, they ran into their first bit of trouble. Two porters got into a fight. The safari set out boldly along the Nile. About three miles from where we crossed the Nile, they were obliged to ford another river, waist deep. Just beyond the river was a resthouse. While the boys ate peanuts, the couple rested in the shade. After 15 minutes rest, they set out for Shoga, a village seven miles away. They walked in the cool of the afternoon, through beautiful country. The native village seemed prosperous. The countryside was green and verdant. The sunshine was mild and invigorating. A cool breeze blew. Thousands of birds of infinite breed and varied plumage flew about. The couple barely managed to keep up with the safari. The men of their safari belonged to the Bari tribe and were descended from cannibals. There was native warfare in Rejaf as late as 1910.

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When they reached Shoga it was dark. There was an empty hut, and they set up camp for the first time, and in the dark. They managed, but their only mistake was setting up their beds on the inside of the hollow facing their carriers. Placed on the outside of the square, there was more privacy, and much less noise. They made that mistake but once. Those resthouses were set down in the wilderness adjacent to nothing but water. The resthouses were surrounded by stockades of saplings to keep out prowling animals. Inside the ground was bare. The hut shelters were made of mud and straw, with hard dirt floors. Sometimes there was a mud fireplace for cooking; sometimes not. At Shoga, they saw no village but soon heard one. Around 8 p. m. the tom-toms started. Their carriers soon joined in on their own around a fire about 100 yards off. The drums continued till the dim of the moon, they sang, they danced, they beat their tom-toms. While they were at breakfast the last of the revelers were still stroking the tom-tom and trying to sing. They were underway by 5 a. m. The second day they were to walk to Pettia Liminda, about eight miles; take lunch and rest; then walk to Pettia Logar, six miles, for supper and sleep. The county they passed through was like the deserted farmlands of New England. The land was uneven, hilly, rocky. They were five days toward Nimule before they saw their first palm tree. The weather was cool except for midday. Often there was a breeze. They still had the rag end of the rains with them, but occasional showers fortunately found them under cover. The black boys who walked with them were paid 10 cents a day. They carried 60 pounds on their heads and average of 17½ miles a day. They supplied their own food consisting of cakes of durra flour, and peanuts.

Soon the country was empty of natives. They passed a rocky ridge to their right. Giant baboons were venting their displeasure. The creatures barked at them like dogs. There were about 100 in the troop. When they reached Pettia Liminda, they bathed and changed into fresh clothes. They applied adhesive tape to their blistered feet. They dined and lolled in camp armchairs. They were told in Rejaf that the launch would sail south from Nimule six days later, at noon. They walked the 90 miles (which proved to be 105) with half an hour to spare. Their daily walks were from village to village. Until one reached a village (or water), one kept walking. The were obliged to ford five or six rivers in that walk of 105 miles. One day they reached Goombri, which was on the frontier of sleeping-sickness area. The couple paid their carriers and negotiated in sign for a new safari at a nearby village. The new carriers were of the Madi tribe. They were more savage, more serious-minded, and not so frivolous or gay as the Bari crowd; but they were stronger, more physical, and were more businesslike. All those Madis looked alike. They had shaved heads, leaving a little topknot, and had filed their teeth to sharp points. They looked ferocious but were well behaved in the couple’s company. They had difficulty communicating, mostly in sign, but there was nothing to do but keep plugging onward until they reached a resthouse. One night they ran into a wonderful dance. It was at a resthouse called Buna Karaffi. The women of that section were slender, with fine physiques. They had bright, intelligent eyes and clean, white teeth, and were rather pretty. Those important dances were given immediately following the rains, preferably on the first moonlit night. Every two hours they gave the boys a 10-minute rest and passed out cigarettes among them.

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The character of the country changed from hour to hour. It was broken, thickly wooded, and not what one would call tropical. There were stones galore and rocky ledges and ridges. They climbed up and down. Toward the end of the sixth day they arrived at Usswa, the last rest house before Nimule. Next morning, they started late, thinking that Nimule was only a couple of miles away; it was 11 miles distance. They walked those 11 miles in three and a half hours and limped in before the boat was scheduled to sail up the Nile, only to find that it was two days late. Nimule, a Nile village, was the headquarters for the sleeping-sickness area. The camp contained several hundred afflicted blacks at the time of their visit. A Syrian doctor advised them to march in the dark in that region, the tsetse flies were not active until the sun rose. One night in Nimule three lions raided the camp, less than 100 yards from their resthouse. The author fired some shots into the air from his revolver which scared the beasts off. The second night, the natives gave a dance in their honor. The government permitted those natives to dance only once a week; it excited them too much. When a native got excited, he made mischief. The third night, at 10 o’clock, a whistle blew. The boat had arrived. The white man who was in charge, and who was running two days late for reasons not explained, gave them 10 minutes to pack their duffle in the dark. They were on board approximately within the limit. They shoved off into the Nile in the Stygian darkness. On board were swarms of blacks, the couple, a Count, and the captain. There were only two berths; the captain took one and Mrs. Shay took the other. The author and the Count slept on the deck. The captain would not allow mosquito nets to be erected, so the author was bitten repeatedly and contracted tropical fever which stayed with him until Cape Town.

They were two days and three nights on that filthy boat. The rank vegetation of the upper Nile broke away from the banks in masses, dotting the stream with floating islands. They seemed to be sailing on a sea of lily pads. The river itself appeared verdant, marshy, and malarial. There were thousands of crocodiles and hippopotami. At one place, where they stopped for wood, there were 300 natives waiting for the boat. The captain would not let them aboard. When they reached Lake Albert, the captain assumed a more conciliatory attitude toward his three white passengers. He invited them to go hunting hippos. The couple accepted, but the Count refused. In a long boat propelled by twelve natives, they pursued hippos up and down Lake Albert. The skipper’s nerves were shaky. He missed his targets at all yards, from 10 to 100. That added to the sport. The third night they anchored for safety’s sake. Lake Albert was a very large sheet of water and was often extremely rough. The captain dared not try to sail that unseaworthy craft in the dark. At daybreak, they started for Butiaba. The author had never known rougher going. They sat like statues on the cramped deck. The Count got seasick. They arrived at Butiaba about 8 o’clock on a Sunday morning. By dirt road it was 35 miles from Butiaba to Masindi, where they hoped to catch the boat bound across Lake Kioga, at 5:30 the same day; but they were delayed by the natives four hours from starting. The old motor truck that carried the three whites and several blacks averaged but seven miles an hour. They reached Masindi just in time for dinner. Since they had missed breakfast, by choice, and lunch, without choice, they were grateful for that dinner. The country between the lakes was of red soil. Occasionally, they passed a white coffee grower attempting to carve out a living in the jungle.

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Since they had missed the evening boat, they were held up at Masindi for five days. It was a blessing, for in Masindi they found a comfortable little hotel with four bedrooms, living room, and dinning room. It was owned by a major, a big game hunter of renown. They were welcomed by the English colony there, ten men and four ladies. They played tennis; much good fun resulted. They were very kind to the couple in Masindi. Those Uganda blacks at Masindi were a generation or two ahead of any black they had between Khartoum and there. There, they saw several large shipments of ivory on the way to the coast, bound for Europe. The boat on Lake Kioga was a clean, comfortable little craft, in charge of a jolly Scottish captain. They sailed all around the lake and stopped at many small ports to pick up cotton. There were four British traders and officials on board who had come up from Lake Victoria. On the lake they experienced several tropical storms under particularly favorable conditions. They saw them coming from a long way off. Then the struck and engulfed them, for perhaps 10 minutes. When the storm passed, the air was cool. Lazily they sailed through channels of water lilies, down silent avenues of papyrus swamps. Finally, they reached Namasagali and boarded the little train for Jinja, five hours away, on the shores of Lake Victoria. The route they followed down through Africa zigzagged a little, but it was always south. After they left Namasagali, they passed through a high, fertile country, dotted with banana and pineapple plantations. The banana was one of the staple foods of that region. They bought pineapples from the natives. On the road to Jinja they saw Ant hills the size of native huts, a multitude of trees, tall grass, groups of natives, and clean little railroad stations, all repeatedly.

The hotel in Jinja was a group of straw-and-mud huts. Even so, the management was courteous and the beds clean. Jinja rested on the hills over Lake Victoria. That Lake, second in size to Lake Superior, was the source of the Nile. Ripon Falls were less than a mile away. Except for hunting, there was little to do in Jinja. The couple found prices for imported goods exorbitant. Wherever they went, they found friendly whites who gave them information concerning the next lap of the journey. They waited at Jinja for the boat to take them across Lake Victoria to Kisumu, the lake port of the Kenya Colony. When the ship arrived, they said goodbye to the Count. They crossed directly to Kisumu in less than 24 hours. Kisumu, on the shore of Victoria, was some 3,700 feet above sea level; Nairobi was nearly 5,500 feet. Therefore, when they left Kisumu, they began to climb. The train mounted the Kikuyu escarpment, at 8,000 feet, and they experienced arctic cold even though they were near the equator. Nairobi was the largest town in Central Africa. It was the seat of the British Government and desirably situated. The adjacent country was mountainous. The naked native blacks seemed out of place. The English were attempting to make the region civilized and productive. Though Kenya Colony was on the equator, at such altitudes the Europeans enjoyed winter sports: skating, tobogganing, and skiing. There was a distinctive kind of Native in Kenya Colony. The women shaved their heads and pierced their distended earlobes. Most of the women carried burdens slung on their backs with a strap across the forehead. They stooped as they walked. In Nairobi, the Shay’s stayed at the Norfolk Hotel. A tree outside bore a legend: “This tree was planted by the Honorable Colonel Theodore Roosevelt.

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They decided, by map, to push down through the Masai country, to the east of Lake Victoria. They were warned that it was dangerous, and they could not persuade a guide to take them. After three days, they found an Englishman headed to the edge of Masai country for a hunt. They left Nairobi at 7 a. m., a little American-made car, to cover some 75 miles. One mile outside of Nairobi, the road degenerated into a wagon track across low meadows. That was the principal road in Kenya Colony. The Masai were the most warlike and most feared of all the African tribes. They were a cattle-owning people. They considered farming disgraceful. Cattle ticks and fever were rampant among their vast herds; so, there was a quarantine station on the edge of Masai country to keep the cattle and contamination out of Kenya. The author expected to see big game in Africa, but was amazed at the Kedong Valley, five miles from the quarantine station. There were thousands of animals within a radius of a few hundred yards of their car, grazing peacefully. The Kedong Valley consisted of a series of undulating plains with pockets of grazing ground intruding into the foothills. The next morning, they set out to hunt. The author fired at a herd of zebra but missed the one for which he was aiming. Farther on, they spotted a herd of kongoni, a variety of horned beast weighing 300 pounds. Mrs. Shay shot a large male. Their host spotted something under a tree. It was a dead zebra, the author’s zebra. He had not missed after all. Two Kuku natives showed up, and the party engaged them as gun-bearers, skinners, and all-round helpers at a shilling a day each. After lunch, they prepared the dead zebra as lion bait. To keep off the hyenas, jackals, and vultures, the carcass was covered with thorn bushes throughout the day, which were removed at dusk.

They made a 10-mile circle around the plain and saw hundreds of animals, peacefully grazing. That evening the saw five ostriches in single-file parade. That night, lions roared all around the camp. The group turned out a 3:30 a. m. to catch thelion on the bait with the first flush of daylight. The author carried the largest run, so he took the first shot. He missed. Mrs. Shay and the hunter began firing as the lion bounded away unharmed. That day they were in a furor of excitement. To kill a lion became an obsession. Lesser animals were suddenly unattractive. The next morning, they set out to kill another zebra for bait. They wanted it in a particular, favorable spot. But could not drive the zebra there. Instead, they shot it in the open and hired a native oxen to drag it a couple of miles, leaving a line of scent to the place they wanted. Mrs. Shay and the hunter each shot a zebra. They hired a Kuku native with an ox and had them dragged to high land with thorn bushes and small trees. They built a boma, a small fort of thorn bushes, and wait all night for a lion to come. One never did. The rug in their living room would have to be an Afghan from Peshawar. The author resolved to get a pair of gazelle horns for the family carving knife and fork. At 200 yards, he shot a Thompson’s gazelle, a male with very nice, long horns. Each morning, they hunted lions without success. Between times they shot several varieties of horned beasts. One day, they saw a herd of giraffes. What beautiful creatures they were. They were sorry to finish the hunt, but they had killed all they wished to kill except a lion. While at the quarantine shack, they were told that there was no path through Masai country to Mwanza, and there was no water. They would have to sail down Lake Victoria to reach Mwanza, in what once was German East Africa.

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They decided to hunt around for baboons; not to shoot them, but to get close and spend a day among them. Those little “old men” of the forests lived on rocky hillsides which were densely wooded. If there was a stream nearby, so much the better. They found them along a stream, under thick foliage. The three of them when in at different places. The author crept along the bank and soon saw a male and a female walking toward a tree. He shouted and struck a bush. They quickly scurried up the tree. Then the forest woke up and barked at the intruders. Baboons uttered a single, sharp, harsh bark, oft repeated. One old male came out of a tree near them and challenged them. They fired a shot over his head, and he fled in terror. One curious feature about Africa was that the Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika, Rhodesia, and South Africa, all under British flag, were governed as separate countries. As the Shays entered each they were obliged to pass through customs. They crossed Lake Victoria from Kisuma to Mwanza, a journey of 48 hours, in the company of a Scottish captain, a Scottish engineer, and a pleasant group of white men. When they tied up at Mwanza, the captain took them on his small boat to some nearby islands to hunt iguana. Some of those giant lizards were six feet long. From Mwanza to Tabora, through Tanganyika, they were obliged to walk 300 miles. They were told to see an Italian trader, Bolini, who loaned them a tent for their journey. The couple would send it back with their carriers once they reached Tabora. Mwanza was the principal port on Lake Victoria for Tanganyika. A short distance offshore was an island, a pile of granite topped with kind of fort. This was a German stronghold during the World War. [See: “Transporting a Navy Through the Jungles of Africa in War Time,” October 1922, The Geographic.]

They stayed in Mwanza four days. They stayed with an Englishman camping out in his living room. The high commissioner provided them with 24 carriers. On the fourth day, they reported promptly, early in the morning. At a station called Shinyanga, an outpost, they were to meet a British official who knew the route and would give them advice. The distance from Mwanza and Tabora was estimated at 250 to 300 miles. They estimated that it was about 250 miles. They negotiated that distance in 15 walking days with one day of rest, 16 days in all. Much of the former “German East” country was high-grass land. There were more than enough lions in it. For the first 60 miles, the Germans had built a road with cracked stone. After 60 miles, the road became a dirt path, sometimes 15 feet, sometimes 15 inches wide.  For long stretches, the going was difficult. The sand and dust were 6 to 12 inches deep. The country itself was flat and uninteresting. The natives were courteous and childlike. They were able to buy food in the villages. A goat to eat was a great treat for the carriers, and showed the couple’s appreciation for their efforts and cheerfulness. The author paid each carrier 7½ shillings each for the 250-mile trip. They walked just under 17 a day for 15 days, each with a load of 60 pound on his head, and then returned on the same trail to Mwanza, 500 miles total. When they got to Tabora, the author gave them each a 3-shilling tip. They were delighted. On the march, the couple had been fortunate; they not only had a singing safari, they had a song leader. They were wonderful singers; it was positively inspiring. On the march they found no fruit until they were within eight miles of Tabora. Tabora had felt the Arab influence, so there was fruit there, but not on the trail. The water on the march was vile; they often dug in dried steam beds for it.

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The ex-German district around Mwanza was one of the most productive districts in Africa. They saw much native cultivation. Every hour of every day dozens of carriers passed them path with bags on their backs, heading to market in Mwanza. For a couple of days outside of Mwanza, still near Lake Victoria, they could still buy fish. Many of the resthouses on the trail were beautiful to see. The natives built a stockade of saplings around the resthouse. Those saplings took root and sprouted foliage. After they left the lake and the rocky promontories of Mwanza, they cut across a wide open, hot plain. They walked for a steady six hours across that treeless country. When they walked in the noon hour, the heat waves flickered the landscape. The last couple of miles always required stamina. The fourth day out from Mwanza, they came upon the claim of a Boer who had discovered diamonds. Naturally, they were interested in diamond, but they were more interested in the limitless supply of lemonade which he offered them. They sat in the shade of his hut and talked for an hour before they took to the trail again. That afternoon they bought a bunch of a hundred or more bananas from a boy for six pence. Whenever they passed through a native village, all the blacks came out and lined the trail to cheer them on. Usually, the chief wanted to shake hands with a white man. These blacks were not permitted to carry firearms. They were armed with spears and bows and arrows. The day before they reached Shinyanga, their cook-boy said they would have to start to march the next morning a 3 o’clock because there were doodoos, and they were fearful things. The author did not know what a doodoo was, but at breakfast, the author’s personal boy slapped his chest and away a tsetse fly, a doodoo.

For hours they walked though that sleeping-sickness belt. The flies swarmed around them. They were able to swat them away, for the most part, but the author got bitten on the hand. Fortunately, the fly was not infected. One night, when they reached camp, they heard the chant of many voices. The local chief arrived with 500 of his men. They made several giant half-circles and started singing and dancing. They gave the chief four shillings and a package of cigarettes. That reception was accorded them on several occasions. One such welcome involved the whole village dropping to their knees and clapping. Whenever they reached water, the carriers would strip and go swimming. When they came to a certain stream of flowing water, some of them would wade out and catch fish with their bare hands, about 25 fish each. Before they reached Shinyanga, they came on a group of 600 native men, clothed in skins, mending a hole in the road, some 40 feet deep. They sang and danced as they worked. The British officers had warned the couple not to sleep in the resthouses between there and Tabora, because of ticks. Ticks burrowed into one’s foot and laid eggs. They tried Bolini’s tent, but found it too hot, so they pitched their beds in the open. In Central Africa, the days were insufferably hot; the nights cool and often windy. They usually turned in at 8 and slept until 4 or 5 the next morning. The mornings were cold. When they stopped for breakfast, the carriers had to make a large fire to keep warm. This was lion country. They saw skins of them everywhere among the natives. Often, they heard hyenas, jackals, and lions nearby at night. The county was fertile; the soil rich and black. The lack of water was a serious drawback, yet for 4 months a year that country was flooded with water. It could be conserved for the dry season.

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At different times during the march, several carriers developed fever, probably due to contaminated water. The author dosed them liberally with quinine. They passed hundreds of huge baobab trees, 60 feet or more in circumference. With gigantic trunks and stunted limbs, those trees were weird and ghostlike. Because the ground was swampy in places and the high-water marks left by streams, they concluded that this section was impassable in the rains. One day, they fell in with a group of Pygmies. There were about 40 of them, all men, about 4 feet tall. Most of them had beards with two sharp forks. The Shays saw many ant hills in Central Africa which were 10 feet or more high. Huge armies of ants crossed the trail and made well-defined boulevards. Along the roadside were gorgeous purple hollyhocks whose large blooms had numerous petals. There were morning-glories in pinkish-white profusion. The carriers had many noisemaking instruments, including a dozen varieties of horns and drums. The native chiefs usually walked up the path a short distance to greet them. They wore some white man’s cast-off garment, often only a coat. That was to impress they, and they acted impressed. Before they had gone half the distance, the uninvited black women became very tired. They were a drag and a responsibility. During the last third of the journey, it was hard to hold the carriers to the daily schedule of 16 miles plus. The author coerced them along the trail by showing them some magic tricks he had learned in India. They thought him a witch doctor, and they spread the news from village to village. Thereafter each night, when they had finished dinner, practically a whole village would watch him perform one or two magic tricks. After those performances, the chief would send the couple some kind of gift.

One day, when they marched into camp, they found a safari already there. It belonged to an 80-year-old Swedish gold prospector. He had searched for gold over 20 years in Australia, 16 years in Bolivia, and 11 in Africa. This time, he was positive he would find it. He had lunch with the Shays and then moved north, while the couple moved south. They did their best to stick to a schedule. It was hard to get the carriers moving in the morning. Toward the end of the journey, the author’s fever gave him much trouble at night. The carriers became tired and the women more than tired. At a stop called Tindi, the carriers attempted a strike. The author forced them to march on across an alkaline plain, a hot, low country. They arrived finally, at 5 p. m., but had only covered 14 miles that day. The next day, they marched 12 miles. When they arrived at the resthouse, the carriers fell asleep immediately. The author knew something had to be done. Then, he decided to hold Olympic games. He had a bag of new English copper pennies for medals. When the cool of the evening came and the men arose from their coma, he introduced them to the broad jump, the three-legged race, the 100-yard dash, and other contests. He offered bright copper pennies as prizes. They participated with newborn enthusiasm. They had two hours of sports. The author distributed 25 pennies as medals. He succeeded in boosting morale. One day, six miles out from a resthouse, the author realized he had dropped his ring along the way. He sent three men back to look for it. He gave them a shilling each and promised three more to the one that found it. That was 7 in the morning. At 2 in the afternoon, they came into the clearing of the next resthouse and handed him the ring. One night they gave the men permission for a big dance.

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The couple brought out their chairs to watch them. They appreciated the audience. They built an extra-large fire and all of them, including the women, got into the semicircle. They jumped up and down, sang, shouted, and danced. When they got too excited, the author called a halt. He passed out cigarettes. The day before they arrived in Tabora was the hardest of the trip. They started late because they were told it was only a three hour walk. They started at 7 a. m., and by noon no resthouse was in sight. The sun was terribly hot. They reached the village of Kazema about 1 o’clock. They were so completely spent that they rested in the center of the village for an hour, in the shade, before going to the resthouse, 100 yards away. A Sikh who owned a store in the village, brought them some tea and sweet cakes, and some ripe papaws. The next morning, the author presented him with his camp chair and camp table. He was delighted with the gift. That last morning, they had an easy nine-mile walk into Tabora. They passed through avenues of banana palms. The hotel in Tabora (in British territory) still answered to the name of “Kaiserhof.” After a bath and a change into civilized clothing in Tabora, the author lined up his carriers and paid them off. He would always remember them fondly. They were a cheerful, likeable crowd. The word Tabora meant “The Resting Place.” There, the Arabs, enroute to the seaport of Zanzibar, rested the slaves captured in the Congo. There was an influenza epidemic raging in Tabora when they arrived, and they feared they might have been refused admission into the Congo. A friendly British official and a letter of introduction from Lord Leverhulme assured no delay. In Tabora, Henry M. Stanley fought one of his battles. There were many black there who threw a spear at that explorer.

The sultan entertained them at tea. More than 50 of his young women danced for them. The entertainment was given inside the sultan’s walled garden, outside Tabora. There were several Europeans in the town and quite a settlement of Hindus, who were traders and shopkeepers. Then there were the Arabs, who had been around Tabora for hundreds of years. The Arabs had well-marked slave trails through that country for a thousand years before the European adventurers arrived. That Central African country offered little opportunity to the individual settler. He was quickly starved out. Only governments seemed to have a chance to succeed. In Kenya, many of the individual settler had deserted their plantations and went to Nairobi, hoping to secure any kind of paying job. In Tanganyika, the individual German settlers had all been deported. To conquer the wilderness required a community of action. In Tabora they saw traces of the Arab influence. There were trees of exotic fruits and many of the luxuries dear to the Arab world. The Arab, hunting slaves, was cruel and heartless. He invaded the jungles, captured the blacks where he found them, separated families, tied the unfortunates together in gangs, and hustled them of to the coast under whip. They never returned. The Greek who ran the Kaiserhof Hotel was said to have lost double his operating expenses each month. He was a philanthropist and a philosopher. All in Tabora spoke well of him. He deserved it. They would always remember him as a kindly, generous man, who sought to make his hotel more than a halting place in a country of discomfort. Sunday afternoon, they called on the White Fathers. The bishop in charge received and entertained them. Those missionaries come out to Africa for life. The bishop had served for 28 years with only one trip home due to black-water fever.

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Sixty-seven people were killed by lions in the Tabora district during the same year that they walked from Mwanza to Tabora. The preceding six months saw more than 300 lions and 800 leopards killed. From Tabora they traveled to Kigoma on the Dar-es Salaam railway, which operated from the seacoast to Lake Tanganyika. When they left, everyone came down to say goodbye. The hour or two that remained of daylight showed them only barren hills; when they awoke at daybreak, a ragged country of hills and valleys, an overgrown jungle. This was the country Stanley marched trough to find Dr. David Livingstone. He found him in Ujiji. An hour before they arrived at Kigoma, they caught sight of Lake Tanganyika. The jet-black natives of Kigoma were of a much more primitive mold than the breed at Tabora. A dozen of the dark citizens put the couple’s bags and boxes on their heads and delivered them to the little Hotel Tanganyika. These African hotels were unique institutions. There was a building with two public rooms and a barroom and dining room operated as one. Beyond, adobe huts provided sleeping accommodations. One got a complete hut for his own light housekeeping. At sundown, all the white men within walking distance came in for a “sundowner.” These soldiers of fortune rolled dice for drinks on the hotel porch. Along the lake, five miles from Kigoma, was Ujiji. The mango tree under which Stanley met Livingston still stood. There were no horses, no donkeys, no autos in Kigoma, but there was an ancient ricksha, with heavy cart wheels. The author walked while his wife rode over the hills to Ujiji. Ujiji appeared to be a university town in mud. They passed a mud mosque where Muslim prayers were being chanted. Old Arabs in doorways stood and saluted them and they saluted back.

Nothing was changed, except that the lake had receded 100 yards from the old mango tree, which was directly on the shore when Stanley found Livingstone. The tree was dying. Under it, a scarred stone, toppled over, bore a legend of the meeting. The corner was broken off it, the edges chipped. No fence around tree or stone; no protection given to either. They expected the boat to arrive at Kigoma next morning to take them to Albertville, on the Congo side of the lake, but it did not arrive until late evening. Once aboard the Begian boat, they found the week’s wash strung about the deck. They elected to return and dine on shore and only to sleep on board. It was a night’s ride across Tanganyika; they reached Albertville, in the Congo, at daybreak. The customs official at Albertville had received many cigarettes and other American favors during the World War. He felt obliged to Americans. He passed them on without checking their bags. At Albertville they endured their first Belgian-African hotel. Each meal was interrupted while the black boys killed rats under the tables. The bedrooms were in vermin-infested, all-grass huts. The only pleasant hours in Albertville were those spent at tea with the commandant and his wife. The Congo black women of that region were so voluptuous looking as to appear almost deformed. They were brown, with faces tattooed in blue, and bosoms and backs decorated with raised welts. No other blacks that they saw in Africa were so colorful as those Congo women. The Congo men were undersized nondescripts. In comparison to those opulently attractive women, the stripling men seemed extremely puny. For the first time in Africa, they observed black women with shapely limbs. Those natives had style; they wore their bright calicos with a swagger. Many upcountry natives were very apathetic in comparison.

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An attractive group of brick cottages was being built in that town, on two hills overlooking Lake Tanganyika. When completed, Albertville should be the model station in Africa. The British had nothing like it in their territories the couple had traveled. Toward the Congo River, they saw skeletons of huts in clearings. Some years back, an end was put to cannibalism in the Congo along the rivers and railroads, but in the interior, it was said, the situation had not changed. Along that route, the natives are raw, the clearings few, the forest dense, and living was most primitive. There was much sickness, plague, and what not in that region of the Congo. On the train bound for Kabalo, they met the Arab Sultan of Zanzibar. He was polite and suave. Dark came. There were no lights on the train. They stopped. Was this Kabalo? Nobody was sure. They dropped off in the pitch dark and pressed into service enough blacks to carry their baggage. The blacks led off and they followed. Yes, this was Kabalo and there was a hotel. The hotel man met the couple at the door with a lantern. While they ate dinner, they heard the whistle of the river boat, bound north for Kongolo. They were bound south, but instead of staying in that hotel, they decided to take the boat north and come back. The time-distance between Kabalo and Kongolo was about six hours. They sailed at daybreak and arrived at noon. Because of rapids, a boat may not navigate north of Kongolo, a settlement with two or three stores and a few shacks for stranded Europeans and the usual native background, on the banks of the Lualaba (the Upper Congo). The hotel was an old, condemned, nearly native structure. The place was filthy. The food was nauseating. The Belgians in the Congo were negligent in their treatment of travelers.

They were obliged to wait at Kongolo for four days and three nights before the boat sailed south to Bukama, the railhead of the South African system. Those were days of torture, and torture did not describe the nights. There was no breeze; the mosquitoes drove them crazy; sleep was impossible. The boat left for Bukama at 4 a. m. But long before, they were on the bank waiting, with all their baggage. On the trip south, they transported several Belgians, an Italian contractor, a couple of Greek traders, a Romanian Jew, and a swarm of blacks. More than one of those white gentlemen carried a black lady as supercargo. Many in the Congo openly consorted with the black women. There was no ice on board, so each morning they shot their meat from the upper deck. They ate several varieties of horned animals in Africa. One needed to develop a taste for such meat. The one shower on the boat was used as a storage room, so, for they eight days they dipped pails of water from the Lualaba each morning and tried to maintain their morale. The natives were everywhere. They carried all sorts of live animals, including goats and chickens, and a plentiful supply of dead meat. The odor was indescribable and unavoidable. It permeated the atmosphere by day and suffocated them at night. The same sort of boat on the Nile, under British command, was clean and shipshape. On this boat, the first-class cabins were on the lower deck, among the natives. Those blacks were covered with vermin, even the women who belonged to the white men. The Congo was the typical tropical river of the imagination, with banks bordered with palms and gorgeous jungles. They passed conical grass huts and native villages at every turn in the stream. One day they saw a roaring grass and forest fire started by natives to clear the land. Black smoke swept over them.

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When they stopped, natives on board traded bananas for fish with those on shore. When they stopped at a trading post, a shack managed by Greeks, they were treated to beer and exchanged much gossip. When they stopped at the post where the Romanian left, he gave Mrs. Shay two little otter skins. The scenery along the Congo was much more varied and much more beautiful than the Nile – luxuriant, gorgeous, riotous. As they proceeded up river, there was a marked variation among the native tribes. Often when they passed a village, the native would swim out to them in crocodile-infested waters and begged for bottles. They shot at those crocodiles from the upper deck. At Mulongo, a Belgian official and company of native soldiers were attempting to quell a rebellion. The Belgian had deposed an old chief who took to the hills. Occasionally, he raided the villages of his successor. One day they stopped at a station where a young English trader came on board with a supply of elephant meat. After a few days, that elephant meat lent a new odor to the stink. On occasions they passed long canoes with as many as 40 paddlers and a white man under a straw thatch. After being stuck on a sandbar for 18 hours, their boat arrived at Bukama in time for them to miss the train going south; so they had another two and a half days’ wait. The hotel at Bukama was well managed. The place was clean, the food entirely acceptable. After dinner, the dining room was cleared for dancing. An American phonograph played. The gentlemen paired off and danced together. The third night, they boarded the train for Elizabethville. They had exhausted their cash. There were no banks from Nairobi to Elizabethville. They had just enough to buy second-class tickets; but a Belgian official they had dined with put them in first-class.

When they arrived at Elizabethville, the Congo outpost of civilization, they found it necessary to borrow carriage from their English friend to get to the hotel. Elizabethville, named after the Queen of the Belgians, was the social and trade center of the Belgians in the Congo. In Elizabethville, the fraternized with the young Englishman who came from the Congo with them, and with several of his friends. That was the first vestige of civilization after many weary weeks. In Elizabethville, they had ice and edible food, clan beds, and other symbols of luxury. The author’s fever blazed up again, and he applied quinine and philosophy in equal parts. Elizabethville was a typical tropical town of wide streets, one-story houses, a few stores and bars, a movie theater, a bank or two, and office buildings. The whole covered a tremendous area. Elizabethville enjoyed special prosperity during the World War period, because of some copper mines, with gigantic smelters nearby. Those employed thousands of blacks and enough whites to keep them in order. Since the war, hard times had settled on the Congo, and on Elizabethville in particular. Most of the transactions in the Congo were settled by IOUs. One accepted such a slip of paper and waited for the money. They waited in Elizabethville for five days for money to be wired to the bank for them. The next train south would not be along for some days. There was nothing to do but to stroll about and visit with their English friends. They visited the Elizabethville Golf Club, consisting of a small one-room shack and lots of scenery. On the golf course, they had some six hundred ant hills. Round about Elizabethville were scrub forests and miserable clearings. The Congo was a wonderful metal country, but the land was rough and ragged. Those metal deposits were owned by a monopoly.

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The Belgians there refused to talk English; they insisted that one speak French. The author was glad to converse in what-he-called-French. All blacks went barefoot. Many of them had sore feet. All waiters in hotel dining rooms went barefoot. Back in civilization again, that seemed strange and unnecessary. Social clubs in the Congo, like the ones in British possessions, had difficulty surviving, because Belgians were stationed there temporarily, counting the days until they returned home. At the mines, the official of a certain class were entitled to a five-room house. The Shays finally departed south by train. They entered Rhodesia, the most northerly of the South African states, at Sakania, approximately 150 miles southeast of Elizabethville. Rhodesia, from that station southward, was a ragged, broken, tree-covered country, tremendously rich in mineral resources. All day, from Sakania to Broken Hill, they traveled empty, desolate country. Native kraals appeared in clusters. Occasional white settlements were usually a group of half a dozen one-story shacks. They stopped at railroad stations set oyt in the blue, with no house nearby. Round those lone stations, natives appeared in breechcloths and assorted semicivilized rags. They were the once-dangerous Matabele, who were on the warpath as late as 1896. Near the towns they found the odd jobs of the white man’s civilization attractive, but in the blue, they had little to do. Farming was women’s work, degrading work. Besides, their wants were simple. Their women easily grew enough food. The couple saw thousands of those natives. Many were huge men, with bold, strong faces, thick bodies, and heavy, muscular legs. Black men of the colder zones had the vigor and courage of white men. Both the Zulu and the Matabele were strong, resourceful warriors. They left their mark on South African history.

Broken Hill was the first white colony of importance as one traveled south. Towns like Tabora, Elizabethville, and Broken Hill were very attractive when described by soldiers of fortune. But the author found them dull. They were simply villages existing under impossible conditions, with all the peculiarities of village life and few of the advantages. “Out of the blue” was the phrase to describe the African country. Here they saw the “blue” stretching away interminably. A dust cloud appeared far off ahead of them. Soon a shape outlined itself. It was a prairie schooner with 16 oxen attached. A tall man, with a whip, walked alongside and shouted at the oxen. A mother and child were passengers. They were going upcountry to seek their fortune. The second day came Victoria Falls, he falls of the Zambezi River, discovered by Dr. Livingstone. These falls were broader and more than twice as high as Niagara. The great cataract was surrounded by masses of green trees. The country was wild and tortuous. Above the falls, the Zambezi flowed slowly, until it reached the edge of a narrow fissure. Then over it went, into the chasm. It emerged a quiet river again. It had cut a cavernous passage through the rocks, sheer and deep. The scenery was indescribably beautiful. They had a wonderful view of the gorge from the Victoria Falls Bridge. The mist from the cataract blew over the railroad coaches. Bulawayo was the old capital of Lobengula, the last great chief of the Matabele. The name meant the “Place of Slaughter.” Thirty years ago, unmitigated savagery reigned there; in 1925, Bulawayo was a presentable, orderly, civilized town. There they founda tomb carved out of solid rock. a scrupulously clean English hotel, bathtubs, and plenty of hot water. There they found ice cream, oranges, apples, newspapers, motion pictures, automobiles, chocolates – and information about boats.

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They had a statue of Cecil John Rhodes in the center of Bulawayo’s main street. It looked toward the north. They motored 28 miles to Rhodes’ grave in the Matopo hills. The body rested in a tomb carved out of the solid rock. The path across the mountain was steep and treacherous, but the top was what Rhodes called the “World’s View.” The view was unobstructed on all sides. Near Bulawayo, seven miles out, was another place of pilgrimage, the Khami Ruins. That prehistoric structure was supposed by some to be of Phoenician origin. Over the Khami River, on a promontory, some ancient people built a stronghold. Only stone walls remained. Those were constructed with square-cut blocks, like modern paving stones. That the prehistoric people who built those ruins were highly civilized was proven by the exhibit in the Bulawayo Museum. There, the author saw gold beads, table tools, and a pair of handcuffs. On close inspection, this Rhodesian country was a disappointment. There were some choice bits, but much of it was dusty, rocky, raw, and barren. On the return trip they met several parties of Matabele girls with huge baskets on their heads. They wore plaid skirts, nothing much above them, bare feet, smiling eyes, and glistening teeth. The couple stopped at the villages and talked to the old men who had fought in Lobengula’s regiments. The next stop was Mafeking, from which Dr, Jameson started his raid with precipitated the Boer War, and the town where Sir Robert Baden-Powell endured a famous siege. Mafeking was the center of a cattle country, a farm country. The veldt was brown and beautiful. Spring was in the air. We saw dozens of farmers, Boers, at work. When the train stopped, natives hawked carved-wood figures, giraffes, elephants, and buffalos. Other natives offered skins of wild animals.

Stolid, silent Boers stood about and said nothing. They seemed resolute and tireless. Obviously, they belonged to this land. This they called home. The veldt, tinted with purple heather, dipped and swelled. Peach blossoms and spring flowers were interspersed with cactus plants. On the near horizon were the conical kopjes that protected the Boer army when it clashed with the British. The Boers held to their racial instincts strongly. They were defeated, but not convinced. In 1925, they still spoke Dutch among themselves. When they surrendered, they secured the right for Dutch to share all privileges with English in South Africa. Therefore, there were two official tongues. All announcements and street signs were in those two languages. Johannesburg, nearly 1,000 miles north of Cape Town, was situated over the mines that produced more than half the world’s supply of gold. The Shays wished to see the mines. They were opened to the public on certain days. Unfortunately, it was not one of those days. As the couple explained to the superintendent that this was their only chance, the “big boss” walked into the office. He was an American from California. He took them down a mile. Down, down, down! At last, they stopped. The “big boss” said something, but the author could not hear. Because of the pressure on his ears, he was deaf. There were 29 levels to that mine – 29 floors – a skyscraper upside down. Presently, their special train arrived. They were propped up on top of an electric dump car. Black and white faces peered at them, smiled as they rushed by. The second day at Jo-Burg, they detoured to Oom Paul Kruger’s old capital, Pretoria. Pretoria was 45 miles from Jo-Burg. Its group of public buildings was the finest thing in South Africa. The Pretoria Capitol Buildings rested on a slope, a ridge over the town.

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The last night in Johannesburg, they visited a suburb to hear General J. C. Smuts, the Premier, speak to a group of miners. They sat in the 20th row and could not hear the General. The miners were loud and unruly. They visited Kimberley, the roaring mining camp of 30 years prior. In 1925, it was dull, drab, respectable. The diamonds were all controlled by a combine. The output was restricted; the prices were maintained. Those diamond mines were worked by blacks, who were held in corrals, virtually as prisoners. The train that carried them to Cape Town left Kimberley at 3 a. m. and arrived at 8 a. m. on the second morning. With the journey’s end in sight, they both were extremely impatient. Upcountry they were philosophical, accepting what fate brought. But there, on the home stretch, the minutes dragged. The train seemed unnecessarily slow. They passed by dozens of Dutch farmhouses – white, square, squat. The bleakness, the dreariness of South Africa amazed them after the gorgeous luxuriance of the land further north. They finished breakfast. Cape Town was but an hour away. They rolled into the Cape Town station. They stepped out on the platform. They ignored the baggage porters. They solemnly shook hands while the amazed commuters looked on. “Cairo to Cape Town! Why not?” Next morning at daybreak they sailed for England. They were on deck to see the ship leave its moorings, to watch Table Mountain fade from view. “Goodbye and Good Hope!”

The second (and last) item listed on the cover is entitled “Amid the Snows and Swamps of Tropical Africa” and has no byline. It is not an article, but “16 Full-page Illustrations in Duotone.” These Duotones, formerly known as Photogravures, are images transferred to paper from etched metal plates using special ink. The deeper the etch, the darker the transfer. The ink used for this set of duotones had a greenish tinge to it. The sixteen pages are embedded within the first (and only) article and are on pages 163 through 178.

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A list of the caption titles of the duotones is as follows:

• “A Trail Under the Canopy of a Ugandan Forest”
• “Mt. Stanley of the Ruwenzori Range”
• “The Eternal Snows of Ruwenzori, Astride the Equator, in Africa”
• “A Wakamba Family at Home in Kenya Colony”
• “A Wrestling Match Between Ugandan Porters”
• “An African Lion in Captivity Poses for His Portrait”
• “Consort of the King of Beasts”
• “Ripon Falls: The Goal of more than 2,000 Years’ Search”
• “Mountains of Debris from a Gold mine in the Rand, South Africa”
• “The Chasm and Livingstone Island of Victoria Falls from Danger Point”
• “The Boiling Pot Below Victoria Falls”
• “The Fife and Drum Corps of a Ugandan Chief”
• “A Uganda Road Through a Papyrus Swamp”
• “Rocky Canyon in Oudtshoorn, East of Cape Town”
• “An Oasis of Forest in the South African Veldt”
• “A Witch Doctor of the Shangani Tribe in Southern Rhodesia”

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Tom Wilson

[George Thomas Wilson]

Still using placeholders for photos.  I need a new scanner.

Thanks to Scott Shier for the cover photo.