The Harvard African Expedition Book 1: July 8, 1926
Creator
Loring WhitmanDate
7/8/26Transcription
Thur July 8th Showers all day but no serious downpours. We spent the morning more or less idley wandering around the town or getting out our things and looking them over & over. Dr. Shattuck & Strong went out to make <hand-drawn map between pages> calls on various white members of the community making arrangements for our trip. Then lunch followed. by
After lunch Allen, Bequaert, Theiller & Linder went for a walk while Coolidge & I wrote and continued checking our instruments. Dr. Strong & Shattuck again went calling. At about 3.30 Hal & I went down town to buy umbrellas, a very necessary evil here where showers descend without a moments notice. It’s too hot to carry a rain coat every where. We bought very ingenious instruments which work with a spring and are made of cheese cloth (at least I suspect them of being no better). You just push a button – and the umbrella does the rest.
Our next call was upon the young *(see last page) We descended upon the bank – the most elegant building in Monrovia where we exchange our useless paper money for silver. There is a fine for using paper in this country. engineers whom we met aboard the Wadai – but we didn’t disturb them for long. We then picked up Dr. Strong & wandered down to Wolo’s house, where we collected him. We went for a walk after that – out to town the garrison along the main road. We soon left We passed some thatch roof huts with mud walls. which Wolo told us were to be found in the interior. Several natives – not Kru’s – were squatting round outside – who on enquiry proved to be Busis (?). and we also passed a big mission school standing in the middle of a large clearing. At the garrison But the sun was setting - and as twilight is short here we turned around. We could look out over the atlantic rolling up on the outside beach – rolling all the way across from america – unchecked.
After supper we sat ar
Just before supper Dr B came in – a Frenchman who has spent the large part of his life in africa, both as a doctor and as a collector of plants & insects in particular, big game and other animals on the side. He is an old friend of Dr. Bequaert’s so all was very well with them.
Monrovia is an amusing place from all that I can hear – in the first a certain amount of their revenue comes from outrageous fines – A white man steps out on his veranda in the morning in his bathrobe – the fine is 500 £ for shocking the neighbors – (He was smuggled aboard a ship & so escaped). A white store keeper in desperation pushed a colored boy out of his store - $1000-. Some Firestone boys (black I think) went swimming at night in the river – arrested for disturbing the morals of the place. And the cook in this house is arrested daily in hopes that someone will pay the govt to get him out. He has been here two years & they decided that he had forgotten to pay his alien artisan tax. The other day it was 3£10 but today it is 5£ with a 2£ fine. So it goes.
And for the whites there is little to do but go out for dinner. They dont bother to talk unless they feel like it – may sit all evening without saying a word – and then just disappear to bed without a word of good night. Even the host may do that.