OUR RACE TO PARADISE 21 



would threaten us often enough when the time came. 

 We could shoot and had learned through many years 

 of exploration how to handle oiurselves in the wilds. 

 But we had grave responsibilities; heavier burdens, 

 sometimes I thought, than any we put on the backs 

 of our camels and donkeys or the black boys who 

 chanted so gayly as they safaried on ''into the blue." 

 Then there were the human souls, the natives, who 

 had entrusted themselves to my care. They could 

 trail elephants and lions, of coiurse, but many would 

 die by the way because of perils I ordered them to 

 take. They were well paid for it ; but none the less it 

 would be my fault. And there would be fevers, 

 illnesses, wounds ahead; we had no physician or 

 surgeon with us, and I must undertake those r61es 

 as well as that of commander of this little army. 

 And if I was concerned for them, I was much more 

 anxious about Osa. Despite her years with me in 

 the field, she was bound to be lonely at times. Her 

 love of adventure, of fishing and shooting, her joy in 

 wild animal life, would carry her a long way; but how 

 about the times — and they would come — when she 

 longed for friends, for new clothes, theatres, dances, 

 all those things which can never wholly satisfy any 

 worth while woman but which every worth while 

 woman craves once in a while. And suppose she got 

 ill, with no other white woman within call. 

 As for the objective of our expedition, it was all a 



