HOW I EXPLORED CENTRAL AFRICA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 97, 14 October 1911, Page 11

HOW I EXPLORED CENTRAL AFRICA.

. (By Mrs. Roby). My journey through Central Africa is the most remarkable of all my adventures thus far—compared with which my visits to Mukden in boy's clothes during the Russo-Japanese war and my explorations in China were mere frolics. From Durban my route was the same since taken by the Duke of Connaught in his tour of South Africa, but I continued right on up to Equatorial Africa, visiting more than five hundred native villages. I had as few bearers as possible, an* for hundreds of miles was alone except for my black bearers. I mean I had no white escort whatever.

When my bearers became mutinous I had to deal with them unaided. I had a very good boy named' "Thomas," who was faithful to me, and saved my life when I had an attack of fever and my temperature was 107 degrees, by persistently pouring cold water over my head after letting down my hair. I was quite conscious, and had given myself a dose of morphia in the hope that if I were to die I might pass away easily. I slept for five days. His face beamed when I opened my eyes. Always when I was on the march I slept with my guns by my side and a revolver under my pillow. Sometimes the bearers were sulky and would not put up my tent, so I had to sleep in a native hut, on my camp bedstead, placing fresh grass upon the bedstead, which I collected myself. There were so many liens about that the bearers would not march in the moonlight, the best time for getting over the ground. In the early stiges of ray journey, soon after we left the railway; two poor fellows who lingered behind on the march were devoured by lions. Once I shot dead a' leopard which waa about to enter my tent. That they might not be tempted to rob me, I always sent my bearers half a mile away at night, either into a village or across a thicket.

Of course, I always wore men's clothes. When the native paths permitted I always rode my bicycle, which a bearer carried for me if the paths were rough. My bath, too, was taken everywhere with me, and was a great comfort, I took a great many snapshots, and taught Thomas how to take pictures so that he could photograph me. There are no horses in the Congo State owing to the tsetse fly. I had a litter, called a machila, but never used it except when ill. I had three attacks of fever, and the last was so bad that I had to make my way, when I was convalescent, from Lake Victoria Nyanza to Mombasaa, and thence, on February 28, on a Messageries Maritime steamer to Marseilles.

, One lock of my hair has turned grey, but I am nearly well again now. I found' the Belgian officials very kind everywhere. I was given a< special permit to shoot elephants, and uaed .it. I killed a hippopotamus. I am looking forward to going out again in the autumn. I was not held up by the rainy season last year; no other woman explorer in Africa has defied the rain. I have looked very carefully into things myself, and I am satisfied that what are called the evidences of Congo 'misrule have been grossly misrepresented and exaggerated., There are to be seen more eases of mutilation in North-eastern Rhodesia than in the eastern part of the Congo State, as a matter of fact, but I 'believe that most of these mutilations, of which so much has been made, are simply the result of inter-tribal wars. The smallest of itlie three monkeys I brought hoane, now in the Zoo, I saved from being inoculated with sleeping sickness. He was put with his sister into a cage where there were tsetse flies, which convey the disease. She caught it, but managed to escape into the woods, carrying the infection there, I am afraid. As he was still free from it I obtained possession of him. This disease is kept down among the natives by strict measures. For instance, my bearers were not allowed ta leave any post till severally declared free from it. Central Africa is a paradise, and enormously wealthy in, minerals.