A Liberian Journey

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                  Fri Aug 20^th In the morning I skinned the hawk, and washed my films which had some copper precipitate on them, as usual it was raining hard and there was little to be done. Dr. Strong was feeling worse and decided to stay in bed and take extremely large doses of quinine as he has had this fever for 10 days now. He was very deaf from the quinine & feeling quite sick. Of course Johnson was boiled that day and would continually drop in to talk steadily for half an hour or more at a stretch in a loud voice. He would come in and say “How are you doctor?” – no answer. Then louder “How you feeling Doctor?” – still no answer and we would ask him not to disturb Dr. Strong as he was feeling sick. But going closer and raising his voice once more “How you feeling today Doctor?”. A mumbled reply about feeling better and Johnson would start conversing with us. Walker did the same thing but always left shortly after. Bequaert caught a glossina pallisera (tsetse fly). “How much you give me for one of those? Twenty Shillings?”. In fact anything he saw which he could sell to us he enquired about. He also wanted to buy some more gin – He listed the kinds and fines for “woman palava”. He commented on the dishonesty of one Daniel Walker & the stirling character of himself – in short he made a complete nuisance of himself.

                  In the afternoon B. & I opened chemical, and chop boxes & by combinations and shifts were able to reduce our junk by 3 men, a slow but well worth while procedure. *about 400 I went out shooting and got but one hornbill for my pains. I did shoot at an eagle but outside of leaving the bullets pat on his feathers I could see no further damage. In the evening I developed again but as the movies were still damp – thanks to almost continual rain for 3 days and 3 nights – I did 3 doz 4x5 films and let it go at that.

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