- 26 - 
In this country of rice and palm oil, we are unable today to 
buy either* Our boys complain continually of being on short rations 
and we shared our own supply of rice with them - not that it went 
very far among so many. 
We are objects of great curiosity in the village, and the 
inhabitants hang around our kitchen constantly, pressing in so close 
that we are constantly asking them to move because they "lock the 
breeze* " We tried out chewing gum on Tetemeh, with the instructions 
"Chew him all day, when the sun go down you waste him". One very 
ancient dame remembers two white men having stayed in Belleyella 
but never a white woman, 
*■* and I were very pleased when Dunbar, Bill's personal boy, 
brought us a lovely bunch of white, sweet- smelling lilies* However, 
this was followed up by a note asking us to sell him six cents ' 
worth of cigarettes. 
Heavy rain fell in the evening, but the roof of our kitchen 
was well thatched, and we were very cosy with our bright pressure 
lamp burning. The long-awaited District Commissioner is rumored to 
have arrived. 
March 27 - 
We are constantly being surprised at the virility of these 
people, who have no knowledge at all of the simplest rules of 
hygiene . Most of them are well built, little evidence of rickets, 
and except for skin diseases seem in good health, in Belleyella 
there Is a paralytic, who once a day crawl s about the village on 
hands and knees. One very old woman , holding one hand on her back, 
walks slowly with a cane, and calls on us every day. She is 
incredibly wrinkled, with grey hair and long flabby breasts that hang 
to her waist* 
The Commissioner, Robertson Clark, is in town, and what a 
difference it make s £ Brisk and business-like, he orders the lazy 
drunken town chief around, and gives orders to the women to bring 
us all the small fish they catch in their nets* He arranges for 
a series of cotton pictures, women cleaning the bolls, and spinning, 
and a weaver at a loom* The Commissioner tells us that we have been 
suspected of being missionaries, and the people didn't want to have 
anything to do with us. 
March 28 - Bill and I went bug hunting, and he was delighted to get 
nine myrme c ophil e s xn two columns of driver ants. Si w ent hunt ing 
and returned with two dead monkeys, and a baby r ed colobus that has 
been shot, but he thinks he can save it. 
In the afternoon J and I went to see Tetemah in her hut. She is 
the head of the Crigri bush, the most powerful woman in town, and this 
is the woman's medicine house - no men allowed near it* Bill asked 
if he couldn ' t come with us, and she said "No * He could come alone but 
only to sleep " • The interior of her one-room hut was black with 1 
smoke of many fires; over the logs that were slowly burning hung 
bags of food and medicine; the dancing girls' gourds and raffia 
decorations were hung on the walls* An ancient dame sat In the center 
of the floor spinning. Conversation lagged, as Tetenah knows 
