A Liberian Journey

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                  Sat Aug 7^th

                  Another rainy day – not heavy rain just drizzle-. I can’t get my films too thoroly dry in consequence which is going to ball up my work.

                  I got up at 700 for a solitary breakfast. The regular hour is 530 but when I develop till 1100 I sleep late. After getting all his stuff backed, his bed packed, and everything ready the launch never came, so Hal will have to undo everything all over again – such is life in Monrov Liberia. We spent the morning getting clean – shaving etc for a change. We also did our best to catch up on our diary writing which has been very lax recently.

                  Theiler continued to examine blood smears thru the microscope while the chief & Shattuck did a little target shooting. Dave & Allen went off bat hunting, Allen to return with one bat, Dave with a live monkey caught by the natives, and a very interesting bird with skin flaps above his eyes.

                  After lunch a hunter who showed up yesterday returned with 3 colobus monkeys – 1 weighing about 20 lbs. I took some photos of them in the rain before Allen started to skin them out.

                  We have quite a menagerie here now – 2 chameleons brought in by natives 1 monkey and two baby squirrels. One chameleon presented us with 30 eggs, a nice gift, which we will try to hatch. The baby squirrels are being fed with a dropper now as their eyes are not yet open.

                  Of the birds we see around here the giant hornbills are the queerest – great big long tailed birds which give about six flaps with their comparatively weak wings and then sail as far as possible. You can hear their wings creak for a tremendous distance. There are also big white eagles with black on their wings which occasionally soar around us. But mostly we see and hear the smaller birds as they flit around in the brush some of these have songs very similar to those at home & at times I almost expect to see some familiar warbler or blue bird only to find a stranger one.

                  And always there is the noise of the jungle – never silent. Hornbills trumpet, pigeons coo, monkeys how squawk at night and never have I heard so many different kinds of bellowing frogs in all my life. You can hear them for miles and countless varieties.

                  In the evening I developed as usual – More movies.

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