A Liberian Journey

Creator

Richard Pearson Strong

Date

10/1/26

Coverage

Tappi Town, Hinterland, Liberia

Transcription

October 1st.
Some seventy to eighty women are pounding rice about six yards from our veranda. They began at five and are at it still (4 P. M.) A number of them came a few minutes late and were given each five lashes with a whip by the government official across their backs and shoulders. I did not see this done but I saw the blood marks on the backs of two as I passed them. They are pounding the government rice raised on the government farms. They use, as is usual, hourglass-shaped wooden mortars and a pole about six feet long with which they pound. They chant continually while they work and at times it becomes a real shouting and they make a terrible racket. This noise has not stopped once since five A. M. The rice is sent down to Monrovia and the government reaps the profits. The women and girls are of course paid nothing. Today has been of scientific importance because I found the first trypanosome of the expedition in Liberia. Last evening about seven o’clock my boy brought me a fly about 11/2 cm. long which he caught while it was biting him. He and the other boys have orders to bring to us all biting insects. I put it in a bottle alive and this morning I dissected and examined it microscopically. When I came to examine the posterior portion of the stomach I found the trypanosomes, which in one part of the preparation were quite numerous and very motile. After studying them in the fresh state and making descriptions in my notebook, I made permanent preparations of them and stained them. The fly I identified as Glossina palpalis. It is a good thing this fly did not bite me last night or it might have injected trypanosomes into my blood (Trypanosoma gambiense). Whether he bit long enough last night to infect the boy is questionable. Its abdomen was not distended with blood.

The clinic has been fairly well attended today. One woman had a large tumor of the leg 14 cm. in diameter just below the knee, probably a sarcoma. We will study it.

Lieut. Wider of the frontier force, who was coming to this place from Gbanga (where our base camp was) arrived last evening. He left Gbanga two days before we did and arrived two days later. He said in Gbanga of course he would walk much faster than we did and would reach Tappi town before us. He did not believe at first that we had covered the distance of some 92-93 miles by trail in the four days, and was only convinced when the people here told him we had arrived two days before he did. As a matter of fact, he was carried in a hammock for at least part of the journey.

Type

Diary

Citation