A CAMERAMAN'S TROUBLES 203 



to him. But as time went on the outlines and 

 shadows gradually seemed to make an impression on 

 his brain, and finally he literally became a picture 

 fiend. He could even tell a good negative from a 

 poor one. But it took months for his brain to adjust 

 itself to the flat paper. I think it must have been 

 absence of depth and stereoscopic effect that made 

 the pictures meaningless to him at first. 



This same thing holds true all over the world 

 among primitive blacks. A Solomon Island mission- 

 ary once told me of a new class of raw savages he 

 began to teach. The first lessons were in A-B-C's on 

 big hand charts. As the savages insisted on holding 

 the charts upside down "and every other which 

 way" the missionary got tired of correcting them, 

 hoping it would make no difference later on. How- 

 ever, as time passed the habit became fixed. Finally 

 when the class came to church they sang with their 

 hymn books upside down and read from their upside 

 down bibles. They never learned to read with 

 their bibles right side up! 



Toward the end of my stay, when I had my best 

 elephant film finished I sent for Boculy, my elephant 

 guide. I told him to get all the boys up after dark 

 and I would show them what I had been doing for 

 so long. When they came I never enjoyed a film 

 show so much. We gave Boculy a seat on a box 

 next to us and then ran off ten thousand feet of film. 



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