African Notebook

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AFRICAN NOTEBOOK

A RICA OTEBOO · ALB · RT

Cl-IWEITZER

I ram lated

by

MRS. C. E. B. RUSSELL

INDIAN.\

UNlVERSI

Bloomington

J

Y

958

PRE

II photographs in thi book COp}'Tighted b • Erica ndcrson and reproduced with her penuission.

1939

COP\'RJCllT IA 'Ul1AC'I I.ID

RY 0

BY HF. ' RY HOLT ANO COMP SY, INC.

RED I ' Tllf. U JTED STA n

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5$.12.:09

I. ON THE TR.A

·s OF

TRAD · R HO N

DAYS

II. TALES 01· OLD

Ill. DIFFER · 'CES BET\\'EE.l

WHITE PEOPLE A iO

• Pr.-OPLE

IV. TABOOS A 0

45

56

iACIC

V. HOSrITAL STORIES A!'.'D SCENES

\'I.

I

91

iORE STORIES

VII. OYEMBO,

AFRI VIII. BOYS J

nm

FOREST SCHOOL {AS'f

CHARACTER EUROPE

IlO

1

37

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'elm citzcr • t

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Frontispi cc

Facing Page Canoe '' itmg for p ticnt n r ho pit. l h\\Citzcr pr ching, n h\C interpreter h''citzcr \\1th child h\\ it.zcr feeding peli n n med Tristan I losp1tal trcct Op rating room 1\frican b ut ' \Vom n nd child, mar ·ct Alb rt clmc1tzcr Canoes in front of hospital elm 1tzcr O\C c ing clearing of jungle dn\e1tzcr \\ ith n th \\Or men ati\c \\Om n coo ·ing fr1 n farml in hospit.. 1'' rd Rh r ho t \\hich brought cas of dru Ulc. K h nd pre n nt ''oman Clearing ground for leper village Cutting gi nt tr clme1tzcr \\ ith paticn Building opcr lion Two tor· , worn. n rT) ing '' ,t cr chwcit7.cr ringing b II

9 10 21

26 27 40

41 44 45

52 53 4

75 90 91 104 10

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117 136 1

. .. :"

A TL A

1 I

CHAPTER 0 'E

0

TIIE TRACKS OF TRADER HOR

TH.E HOUSE JN WHICH I A 1 \VRITJ 'G TH

E REMI-

nisccnccs of Africa is situated on a mall hill on the banks of the River Ogowe above Lan1barenc. Its nan1c is Adolinanongo, ,..,hich 1neans ''looking out over the peoples." It dc.serv this name, for from the hill one gets an extensive view over chc river, which at this Point divides into two branches, as wdl as over the green islands whose ho~ it washes and over the vill ges on its banks, right away to the line of blue hilJs past which its big tributary. the N'Gounic, Aows into it from the south. On this broad-topped hill lay the large village of chc King of the Galoas, by name 'Kombe, the Sun King. Below, on the river-bank, lay che trading post of an English firm, Hatton and Cookson. which enjoyed the protection of N'Kon1bc. This was Adolinanongo about the middle of the seventies of last century, when che firm of Hatton and Cookson sent as assistant to Mr. Gibson, the I

0

THE TRACKS OF 1 RADER II OR

manager of the aading post, a young man from Liverpool who for some time had been working at their headquarters in Libreville. As an old man, resident in an institution ar Johannesburg, this former agenr of the crading post at Adolinanongo. persuaded and helped by frs. Echdrcda Lewis, a South African authoress, wrote bis rcn1iniscences of chat period under the pseudonym Alfred Aloysius Hom. Enthusiastic over the directness of the n rrarive and chc charrn of d1c philosophic reAcctions which accompanied it, John Galsworthy wrote a foreword for the book, which quickly achieved succcss. 1 So in those years T r:idcr Horn was at home on the SPot now occupied by rny Hosp1ral. le was from Alfr~d

Aloy ius Hom, The /wry Coast in tlu E rlies. (London and N York : Jonathan Cape. 1927.) On the maps of the present ~ onl , the stretch of c: st bctwttn C2pc f>alrm nd Cape Three Point~ :at the northern cncrnnce to the Gull of GuinC3 hors the name Ivory ~st. But Tr:t(lcr Horn mans the c~