CHAPTER ONE 

 TWELVE THOUSAND MILES 



ADVENTURE and romance still call from the past 

 ^ to all men and women I Africa offers in this 

 twentieth centmy a journey backward into the neo- 

 lithic period; turns back the hands of time, allowing 

 modem man to walk side by side with stone-age men, 

 who wrest their sustenance with bow and arrow or 

 crude spear from the beasts that roam its vast expanse. 



By day, from a canopy of azure blue, the fierce 

 African sun sweeps its golden shafts over a stupendous 

 sohtude of veldt, penetrates into the deep recesses of 

 mighty forests, glitters on tranquil waters, and burns 

 deep into the sands of endless deserts. By night, the 

 pale moon sails silently through the vault of a star- 

 strewn sky, shedding its mellow beams on a savage 

 world, where the cries of prowling beasts echo through 

 a primal wilderness and primitive man crouches trem- 

 bling in his grass hut or seeks refuge in tree or cave. 



Africa, the oldest known, yet the least known, con- 

 tinent, has been called "the cradle of the human race." 

 It nourished the spark of life when man was amphib- 

 ious and sprawled, dumb and blind, through the slimy 

 ooze on the edge of a Paleozoic lake. Eons came and 

 fled before he stood upright to tread on the bosom of 

 Mother Africa, where later he inscribed in crude pic- 

 ture language his triumphs and defeats. More eons 

 passed and then glorious Egypt arose along the River 



