A Liberian Journey

Creator

Richard Pearson Strong

Date

10/18/26

Coverage

Granh, Hinterland, Liberia

Transcription

October 18th.

I have had no opportunity to write except in my laboratory notebook since October 12th. On October 12th we were at Grawn. Our headman in charge of the porters begged us not to try to travel that day but to let the men rest, and he promised to have them in good condition and ready to travel on the morning of the 13th. In the afternoon he asked to be allowed to let some of them go to get cassava for food.
(I am writing sitting under a shed while a hard shower of rain is going on and the water trickling down my back). This may sound absurd but all other space is occupied with our cots, etc.

Next morning we eliminated all the women with babies from our train and took on some other women and the few men, about a dozen only, that we found in the town. All the others had been called away by the District Commissioner. We left about seven A. M. and our course at first led through high forest and again an unbeaten trail up and down hill and across many streams. A number of porters ran away and left their loads on the trail so that it was necessary to use all our personal servants as porters. We reached the River Cess at 9 A. M. The river here was some 250 yards wide, and we could see numerous rapids in it. Our trail now led along paralled to the river and became in some respects by far the most difficult we had traveled, owing to the many narrow deep streams that flowed into the river. We crossed hundreds of them that day. At times the water was only to our knees as we waded through, at other times up to our waists and once up to our armpits. I put my watch and compass in my hands above my head. I did not of course know when I would have to swim the current. In many of the streams the bottoms were very muddy. Some of the streams it was only practicable to cross by climbing from twenty to thirty feet into the trees which grew along the banks of the streams and then descend by dropping down from hanging branches on the other side. Sometimes we had to descend by branches (poles) no thicker in diameter than your two thumbs. These would bend with me and one did break and I had what might have been an ugly fall, but it did not amount to anything. I, as well as the others, had never had such an experience. For monkeys it is all right to cross streams that way, but for white men! If one of us had really had an ugly fall from some of the higher branches it might have been serious for any of us, for broken bones on such a trip would be a difficult problem indeed to deal with. The travel with the porters was necessarily very slow. My personal boy Burmah was overcome by exhaustion and had to drop down and remain in the forest all night. At times we were only a few yards from the River Cess; at other times the trail took us some 100 to 200 yards from it. By five o’clock we had reached a point on the riverbank where it was considered the current was less swift and where we might cross. One of our headmen who could speak the language of the tribe across the river called out and after a while several people came to the riverbank on the opposite side. Fortunately one could speak a little English and knew what white men were. He said the other people thought we must be soldiers and they had all run away. We persuaded him to cross the river in a canoe and to see for himself we were friendly. He said however that he must go lower down the river and come up in the canoe, as the current of the river was too swift to cross at this point. Just about dark he appeared and we learned from him that we could cross the river about four miles below the point we were then. We bivouacked in the forest that night. We issued rice to everyone and soon the many fires were going all about us, the natives cooking their rice. The moon was out and gave us some light, but the foliage was so dense we could not see the moon entirely, only in sections like thick clusters of stars. We were glad that it did not rain and we got a good night’s rest. Next morning we continued our course down river to the point where we could cross. Owing to the fact that most of the large trees about us were so hard and dense that they would not float in water and were not suitable for rafts, our crossing was slow. We were compelled to use one rudely constructed raft and one canoe. I went across first with Loring and went to the small town of Truée about three quarters of an hour away to get porters to bring up our things, as the other porters on the other side of the river were exhausted. As soon as I collected a sufficient number and made friends with them I returned to the riverbank and sent word across to George and Harold to send over the things. I also sent Loring on to a much larger town (Jay Batu) to bring back porters for our march the next day, as this small town did not have enough people in it to carry all our boxes. On my way back to Truée from the river I noticed a tsetse fly biting me on the back of my left forearm. It had evidently been taking blood for some time, as I walked through the forest, as its abdomen was distended with blood. I slapped quickly at it hoping to stun it so that I might dissect it later, but although the blow was sufficient to cause it to regurgitate several drops of blood on my arm it flew to a leaf close by. I struck at it again and this time the blood gushed from its abdomen on the leaf but the fly was able to fly away and escape. One can always conjecture (or would you say have the excitement of adventure) as to whether the tsetse that bites you in such a subtle way is infected with trypanosomes and if so whether he will inject enough into you to infect you, or whether you are sufficiently immune to overcome the infection.

All the loads were gotten across the river by one o’clock and Loring came back at three o’clock, bringing some porters and with the promise that more would be sent in the morning. The tabanid flies were particularly annoying at Truée during the day and there were quite a number of tsetse flies about. They, the latter, bite very differently. The large tabanid fly buzzes angrily, with its sharp lance ready to pierce from its proboscis the moment it lights; but its bite is the worst about it. The tsetse is much subtler; she makes no noise, settles quietly and you do not know it is biting and sucking your blood unless you happen to see it. Our boys were badly bitten by mosquitoes also at Truée but as we had our nets on our cots, of course, we were not troubled. I mention the mosquitoes because they have usually not been troublesome and only a moderate number of anopheles usually about. We left Truée at 6 A. M., crossed a hill probably some 1,500 feet in height covered with forest and arrived at Chekommu or Che Bontu town three hours later, a comparatively easy journey. An hour after our arrival we had opened our clinic and begun to examine and treat the sick. This left us busy all the rest of the day, The next day was Sunday, October 17th. George and I were kept busy the entire day, he taking histories, etc., and I making the laboratory examinations. We found a number of cases of leprosy in the town and a number of skin infections and several forms of severe ulcerations with much scarring.

We left Che Bontu town on Monday, October 18th at 7 A. M. having had great difficulty in obtaining the necessary number of porters. We also had difficulty in keeping them from running away on the trail. (I have been writing this while sitting in the forest after the day’s march of October 19th. Trees several hundred feet in height are all about us.) However, we finally arrived with all our supplies at Sordya at one-thirty, travelling southeast or southwest throughout the day and always in dense high virgin forest. It was on the afternoon of the day at Sordya that I wrote up my notes to the time of our arrival at that place on October 18th.

On the morning of October 19th we set out from Sordya about eight o’clock and our troubles in relation to transportation began in earnest. We had purchased a quantity of rice from a man named Johnston who could speak English and who offered to secure porters for us -- for a consideration, of course. Later we became convinced that he intended to get all the money away from the porters after we had paid them. He accompanied us from Jay Butu town to Sordya town and had promised to accompany us during the next three days through the forest. He expected we would pay all the porters at Sordya and take on a fresh lot there and we presumed that he had planned to leave us in the lurch there. Fortunately we had taken the precaution immediately after arriving at Sordya to send some of our men to two other towns in the vicinity to obtain porters or we would indeed have been in a bad predicament. In spite of the fact that we had posted sentries on the trails the night of the 18th and placed the porters in guarded huts we had only just enough porters to start on the morning of the 19th, taking every available man and woman in the town. A few miles out from the town, however, we found several of our loads on the trail, the porters ahead having absconded. It then became necessary to rearrange a number of the heavy loads (for two men) so that they could be carried by one man. We tried to take greater precautions against the porters running away by distributing ourselves and our permanent servants at different points along the column and assigned six porters to Johnston. I had found from experience that the greatest difficulties of our travel always occur in the rear of the column. The lame and the halt always drift there. The strongest and fittest porters forge to the front. So I have for a long time taken up my position at the rear of the column on the march. As I came along this day on our third hour of travel I found six more loads deposited on the trail and the porters gone. I blew my whistle, indicating for Coolidge ahead to stop, and then left two of our men to guard these six loads. The night before, we had sent three of our men to Crow town to secure porters and they had not returned when we started in the morning but I had left word for them to follow. Fortunately they were successful and obtained 19 men and women. Coming from the rear they were able to pick up all the loads deposited on the trail that day.

We traveled through the silent forest until four-thirty and when we bivouacked again beneath the moonlight and stars; wonderfully beautiful and peaceful had it not been for the real responsibilities of getting the expedition through this great forest and back to the coast by a certain date. We fed all the porters that night and I had sentries placed about them. A few nevertheless escaped silently through the forest that night. Most of them were present at five A. M. At five-thirty George, who had just looked them over, withdrew the guard as he wanted the man to do something for him and thought that all was serene. Within the next fifteen minutes, while we were eating breakfast, twenty-seven had slipped silently away through the forest and it was then we 1earned that the sentry had been removed. This situation demanded another change of plan. All two-man loads were assigned each to one man, the strongest men being selected. The supplies least needed in the near future were piled together in the forest and two of our permanent employees left with them. Each personal boy was given a load with the promise of extra pay. It seems that Johnston had persuaded the absconding ones that we would in the end treat them as the government officials and soldiers do after they had carried for a few days, viz., give them a whipping in dismissing them when they asked for payment. Anyway, they were gone and we started off again with our caravan of now only some 36. Fortunately we had a group of ten strong men from Crow town. When these men go through the forest they call out to one another like hounds baying and calling. We also had a group of nine strong young women. These all proved faithful through the four days and three nights spent travelling in the “big bush,” but how could I know that they would not become dissatisfied and abscond at any moment? The carrying was very heavy, the trail hard and difficult -- evidently seldom used for we met no one in traversing it. Yesterday (October 22nd) the trail was perhaps the worst of all. It consisted largely merely of the course of the water when it rains heavily, interlaced continually with a network of roots ranging from several inches to several feet high above the surface of the surrounding ground. When one of the giant trees, ten feet in diameter, crashes to the ground, one must either go over it or around it and this is a very frequent occurrence. The trail also never goes straight; of course it must avoid the many enormous growing trees, so one is turning every few steps.

Although I thought I was well equipped with footwear and the strongest boots possible, made by Lobb, all my boots are so twisted and the heels worn off so, that they are very difficult to walk in. The twisting of my feet led to a displacement of one of the cartilages in my left knee three days ago, so that travelling has been none too pleasant for me. Much of it has also been wading through swamps.

The only warning I had that we were approaching the edge of the forest was the sound of the wind in the high trees. In a few minutes we emerged and the broad majestic river (Sanguin) came into view in the sunlight. We crossed the river in canoes (about 300 yards wide) and after half an hour’s walk reached this town, Toya, at half past three.

Type

Diary

Citation