A Liberian Journey

Creator

Richard Pearson Strong

Date

8/14/26

Coverage

Mami Town, Hinterland, Liberia

Transcription

August 14th.

I am camped in the center of a small walled town (Lango town). The wall is built of stakes driven closely together and laced with rattan fibre. There is an entrance gate and an exit one. There are some sixteen houses in the enclosure with mud walls and palm thathed roofs. We have our cots in the communal hall, which all the villages seem to have. It has mud walls only two feet high with an overhanging roof and is open on all sides. I have Whitman and Bequaert here with me. The inhabitants of the town, besides the chief and his one male assistant, are all women and children. There must be in the neighborhood of thirty people in all besides my retinue of six servants. There are a good number of goats and chickens in the enclosure and the latter are in our quarters, sometimes under the beds for most of the day.

We came over Thursday August 12th. It was only a tramp of six hours but I did not enjoy the walk. I left our base camp at seven-thirty, crossed the river in a canoe at eight and arrived here at ten minutes past two, not stopping en route. Whitman and Bequaert rested for an hour and a half on the way. (Just stopped here a moment to kill a tsetse fly, Glossina palpalis. It is unusual to see so many of these flies in a village. They are particularly found along the riverbank.) I did not feel like stopping. The walk was a task for me, to be accomplished as soon as possible. My right ankle was bruised and blistered and oh! how my hips ached at every step. I evidently had some fever but that did not trouble me as I was wet through from perspiration and the showers coming over. As soon as I arrived here with one box, I bathed in a running stream by the edge of this village and put on dry clothes.

I was only able to get 140 porters instead of the 250 and so decided to travel in two main sections, leaving George to come over with the second party two days later. Most of the porters got in with their loads before dark but a few did not arrive until late in the night. Bequaert was paymaster and gave each man 1 shilling 6 pence as he deposited his box. Each headman who directs a group of porters received 4 shillings. It was a hard march for them. The trail was difficult for me because I had to take such short steps. Not more than any ten consecutive feet of the trail is level. It is crossed by millions of roots of trees on the surface of the ground at all angles. There are of course many fallen trees across the trail from time to time that one climbs over and there are many streams to be crossed either by walking over logs (trees) laid across or wading through. My pedometer registered 22 miles from camp to here but as the trail was so crooked the actual straight-line distance may be only some 18 miles.

Of course this “town,” Lango town, is not to be found on any map. I have decided we must travel largely by compass and we are making rough maps and filling in the names of villages as we travel. The names of the villages I passed through Thursday were Mami town, Queeu, and Nihaloo, before reaching here. (I write them as the natives pronounce them). We are travelling northeast across Liberia. No natives we meet know the names of any of the towns on our maps. We take the map and go over every place that we think can possibly be near. Of not one have they heard except Kaka town and this Kaka town is evidently an entirely different place, or at any rate is in an entirely different position from the one shown on my map. Yesterday, Friday the 13th, I had fever and had to drive myself to my work. As long as I had something interesting to do I did not mind but I was not very comfortable. As a matter of fact, I have not been well for a week but I have had to use a good deal of physical energy. I however have been taking larger doses of quinine and my fever has practically gone -- this afternoon 99.6.

Yesterday I found a man who had lesions resembling leprosy, but after a careful study of the case from a bacteriological standpoint, I have been able to find that the case is not one of leprosy but is caused by a blastomyces. It is evidently a rare disease.

I was to have left for Kaka town this morning but could get only 12 porters from this chief and so I sent 12 loads on ahead.

Type

Diary

Citation