MY WIFE HOLDS THE GUN 219 



through the wilderness with a passion equalled only 

 by my own intense pleasure in animal photography. 



By happy fortune we discovered a lovely and long 

 lost lake up in the Kenya country in the crater of an 

 extinct volcano. Four years ago we made our 

 second long visit to Africa and built a permanent 

 home on this water which we named Lake Paradise. 

 There, surroimded by wild elephants and black 

 half -naked savages Osa entered her latest adventure 

 in outlandish domesticity. 



For many weeks after our arrival I watched her 

 curiously. Before we had always come home. Now 

 we might visit back in the States, but our true home 

 was in that far comer of wildest Africa. 



As usual, Osa ran true to form. She entered into 

 the spirit of the whole project from the very start. 

 When we erected our main lodge with logs hewn 

 from the forest and a roof thatched from native 

 grass she built her boudoir with her own hands. 



This boudoir was a nice big cool room fourteen by 

 sixteen feet, or nearly as large as an expensive hotel 

 room in New York. She laid the floor herself from 

 some fruit boxes we had among our stores. While I 

 was busy getting up the laboratory she directed the 

 plastering of the walls with mud — ^native fashion. 

 This doesn't sound • very nice when you read it. 

 But if you could have seen how firmly and hard that 

 African clay dried, and how attractive it was v/hen 



