TRADER HORN

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 149, 16 February 1932, Page 2

TRADER HORN

-QUATOR NIGHTS ANCIENT WITCH DOCTOR'S STRANGE IYORY GOD. OVER UNICNOWN TRAILS. Ihad counted on the scenic beauty of fine warlike type of natives, the presence there of a number of fine warlike type of natives, to film the big scenes in the Trader Horn story, in which Ilarry Carey abducts the White Goddess from her native worshippers. My heart is set on Lake Nabagaba. But between here and there bubonic plague is raging among a fanatical tribe that will not submit to sanitary control without a struggle. At the village of Bomba, 30 miles from here, Dr. Kendall, a British medical officer, was attacked, and is now in the hospital with his left arm cut off below. the elbow. Accompanied by one trained native assistant, he had gone in with vaccine to inoculate the entire native population of Bomba. Attacked with a spear, he seized the spearhead 'with his ' right hand, and waS badly cut in the palm and fingers. Natives closed in, and one struck for his head with a panga knife. He warded the blow in time by raising his left arm. It "was severed by the stroke. His native assistant seized the panga from the fanatic, and is reported to have killed seven of them while Dr. Kendall lay in a faint from his injury. The other natives fled. A police cordon has been sent to surround Bomba; but the danger, as it affects us, is in the infeeted natives scattering in anticipation of this. The plague is rigorously watched by the British officials, as far as is possible. Indian Hustle. Kampala fulfils our expectation of being like a big city, after our weeks in the wilds. The "ducas" or stores run by the East Indians are closed on Sunday, and Monday is the birthday of Prince Aba Kahn in far-off India,

so the "ducas" will remain closed then too. Whether or not we are held up long in Kampala, our motor transport will be turned over to the mercies of the East 'Indian smiths and carpenters here, under close supervision. I have given orders to Lewis McAfee, eleetrician, and Riley and Cornwall to "break out" the machine shop and get all rolling stock into repair. When one realises that the East Indian earpenter sits on the ground and holds a piece of wood with the toes of both bare feet, and then whittles away on it with a saw that is mounted with the handle of it underneath to ensure its working slowly — well, this is no land for an impaticnt disposition. Shivering on Equator. En route Kampala to Nabagaba, August 10. — We are shivering on the Equator. We have come from Kampala as far as possible on the road by motor-trucks, and have puslied on on foot. The trucks have gone back, and we have put in a night in drizzling rain under hastily-erectcd shelters. We are talcing a circuitous road, and will avoid native villages where there is plague. To aceomplish this we are breaking a trail over a steep dcclivity, which will incidentally shorten the route several miles if we do not become lost in a tangle before getting down to the lake. Morgan, who is up and about, is with the hunter Stanton and a party of our men and natives, making trail ahead, and others have returned to Kampala with the trucks, to bring up the heavy eleetrical equipment in relays. The weather in this camp is chilly enough for overcoats now at 10 o'clock in the morning. One negro with Morgan is carrying 601b of black powder, wliich will be used for blasting away rock this morning. An Ivory God. Duncan Renaldo has just come into my tent to show me a littel ivory god that his boy "Duate" got in some way from the natives in the Congo. Duate is devoted to Renaldo, and it is the custom of our "boys" to bring small gifts from time to time to the "master." It is very touching to reeeive from these boys, who .own othing but their clothes and a blanket, trinkets dearly purchased from the few cents of their eai*nings. Of course, the favour is usually returned by the "bwana," so the boys come out much ahead of the transaction. But I doubt whether the boys consciously figure to benefit. I am weaving a bracelet made from the wirelike hair of the elephant's tail from my gun-bearer, Riano. The idol Duncan has is ?f yellowed ivory, and is at least the twin of one he admired greatly in the Congo. There is a retired witch-doctor there, at Arebi, who now spends his time car-

ving, as he is old and he says his eyes can no longer see the spirits. The Belgian Commissioner, Raphael Gerard, Administrator de Watsa Congo Belge, who arranged with the native chief to secure the pygmies for us in the Ituri Forest, conducted Miss Booth and Renaldo to the old witchdoctor's hut, where they saw many interesting things and bought some souvenirs. The little idol, however, he would not part with, on the plea that v;ery bad luclc would fall on him should he do so. The "Rhino Sequence." There are 864 separate scenes in the script of "Trader Horn." Some oi these are mere flashes on the screen. Others are quite extended dramatic incidents. In the field, we have found it advisable to add a scene here and there even to this number, and tc combine others. This is customary practice in the production of a picture. The scenes for "Trader Horn" aro grouped into sequences, for our own reference, such as "Rhino sequence"; "Elephant sequence"; "Lion sequence." If we were to take each scene an average of five times or 'takes" (whicb is about the usual average in the industry), it would make something like 4000 to 5000 separate items of film to check up on, and to check back over, and to check one against the •other. Separate pieces of "Tradei Horn" negative are scattered from here to Hollywood at the present time. If we did not have a field radio, and a headquarters in Nairobi, I do not know how we would ever keep things in order. I remember when I had a rathei hazy idea that there are just twc sharply-defined seasons in Africa, one wet, and one dry. The actual fact is that even the African white hunters with our party — who have, of course. been here for years — cannot agree whether the typical wet and dry seasons are in August or December, oi both. The only thing 1 can say fot the African weather just now is that it is unpredictable. I can look out from the sagging edge of my tent fly just now, and see some little birds fiitting in and out of the bottoms of their nests. The reason for this is that they build their nests upside down. Sensible little birds, when the torrents are apt to pour at any minute. So far as I have observed them, these little birds always select a particular spreading type of tree and their yellow nests frequently number hundreds in one tree. It was reported to me last night that one of the mess boys were rebuked by the head table boy for using the sole of his foot to sharpen the steak lcnives on. I have just learned that Pete Pearson, the elephant hunter previously referred to, an Australian by birth, arrived in Africa in his youth on a vessel, which anchored well off of the port of Durban in the South. He "jumped ship" literally, and swam something like a mile to shore. Sharks are plentiful off the beach at Durban. Well, the sun is peeping out, rather brilliantly. The drizzle is over, and there m'ay be some power in Renaldo's little purloined idol after all. (To be Continued.) fs Rti»*rs v t ,\7r- -.i