CURSE OF WOMEN EXPLORES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 684, 8 June 1929, Page 18

CURSE OF WOMEN EXPLORES

" Discoveries " That Are Never Made

Picnics in Wilds . . . Travel Books in Which ‘Fiction Stranger than Truth’!

Travel is mad* ridiculously easy for tlu woman explorer, thanks to overworked officials at the cm tposts h ms W. J. Makin, one of the first white men to cross the Kalahari Desert, writing in "Pearson's Weekly*’). Tin officials see that the fair explorers come to no harm. . . .

TT was at the railhead, a little outpost in Central Africa, that I witnessed an otherwise sedate and grave official suddenly become explosive. “Another of ’em,” lie spluttered. “Yet another of ’em. Why can’t they stay at home? Why don't they keep ’em at home?” He waved a telegram in my face. “What is the worry?” I asked. “It’s a woman explorer. She sends me a wire asking me to get a safari of black porters ready for her. She’s going into the Congo. These women explorers are a pest. They seem to arrive every other week.” “Why shouldn’t women go exploring?” I asked. “After all, it’s safe enough for them to wander about here.”

“Well, of course it is,” he snorted. “But I don’t worry about their safety —although they are always doing some confoundedly silly and provoking thing.” “What is it then” “It's their ‘discoveries.’ Nearly all these women write books after their picnic of six weeks or so, and in their books they made the most wonderful and sensational discoveries. Those discoveries are invariably in their own imagination.” “Still, there is much of Africa yet to be explored,” I protested. “I agree,” lie remarked. “But is it likely that the women explorers will penetrate those parts? The black porters would never face the unknown with a woman. “I know that the porters tell the women that they are now entering unknown territory —those fellows are as cute as tourists* guides—and the woman explorer believes it and is generous with the rations and pay. Actually, she is more in the hands of her porters than she realises.

“So it is that she discovers rivers that have been mapped for years and writes a book about mysterious mountains or unknown waterfalls that puzzles the pundits of the Royal Geographical Society.” I could sympathise with the official. I have seen on several occasions the devastation in tempers and hospitality that follows in the wake of the woman explorer.

Although these women are t *, e frr> „ any suggestion of attack by tuol. and although they arc carefully herded along the regular route* th«T is always the possible danger of n-. of them dying from fever or even trb! ping over a dead tree root and break ing her neck. Then the h.,.."' officials at the outpost will be barded with telegrams from hv«eri cal people in England.

In Cape Town. the gateway .» Atrua. I have watched these wn. explorers preparing themselves f®, the great assault upon the unknown territories. They buy enough gu ns equip a punitive expedition, enoui* cameras to prepare a pictorial record of all Africa, and enough quinine and medical supplies to keep them for three years in the wilds.

I have watched them in their nic turesque sun-helmets and khaki clothe, set off in the train that is taking then, northwards. And a week later thev discover that the train and motor-ctr is still carrying them conu'orubh through the wilds which they believed to be unmapped and unexplored. When they reach the heart of the Congo they discover a regular service of giant seaplanes ready to camthem down the Congo River, through the “Heart of Darkness,” and thence to the coast. I am not surprised thii they return soon to Cape Town, and are found in a shop | amefaeediv baying a lion skin which will look well is the flat in Kensington.

Recently there arrived at the Cape a woman explorer who announced her decision to dine in full evening dress iu the heart of the jungle. She had been persuaded that British prestige in the wilds depended upon being de cently dressed among, a crowd of dt plorably undressed savages!

Within ten minutes of landing in Cape Town she discovered several black men more exquisitely dressed than many of their white superiors who passed along the same street, while the black women f.aunted fashions that would not have been out of place in Oxford Street It is to be hoped that the curse of the woman explorer will pass away with other fashions. The J is stiil a good deal of Africa to be penetrated •and mapped by small, competent expeditions led by men with some scientific training, experience and tact in dealing with natives. But suchlexpeditions will not provide sensational secrets that a woman explorer may write for a credulous crowd.