FAREWTELL TO AFRICA 441 



We were given quarters in the government rest 

 house, which faces the race track. Jones arrived a 

 few days later, and when the party was all together 

 again there was much to talk about and plenty to do. 

 One of the outstanding features of the expedition was 

 the fact that, during all these thousands of miles of 

 trekking through thorn thickets, over rocky hills and 

 across desert sands, we had not had one single puncture 

 or flat tire on either truck, a great tribute to the sturdi- 

 ness of General Cord Tires, and a record which I doubt 

 ever will be surpassed. 



I spent three weeks of intensive effort preparing for 

 our departure. There were passport regulations to 

 attend to, both for ourselves and the boys; items of 

 equipment to be shipped to America, and other odds 

 and ends to be taken care of. It was necessary to 

 arrange for the transportation of my four black boys 

 back to their homes in Nairobi. This I did through 

 the agent for the Woermann Line, who routed them 

 from Lagos to the Canary Islands. They remained 

 three weeks in Las Palmas awaiting the "Adolph 

 Woermann," the same ship that had brought the 

 expedition to Africa, and she carried them direct to 

 Mombasa, where they arrived seventy-six days after 

 leaving Lagos. All this time the intense heat and the 

 fever in my system were sapping my strength and when 

 I finally stepped on board the ship, I seemed to be 

 walking in a daze from which I did not entirely recover 

 until we had been several days at sea. 



Before leaving, I took the trucks down to the beach 

 where the white-capped breakers were rolling high upon 

 the sands. It was the end of the trail for them, but 

 their drivers would soon be aboard the white mail 



