- 10 - 
with large cool rooms and windows opening down to the floor. 
Half a dozen black house boys brought our luggage to our 
room, and then served drinks in the big living room. Mr* and M b 
S ilas Johnson had been invited to dinner, but they were late in 
arriving, and it was about ten o’clock when we sat down to a dinner 
consisting of barracuda and chevrotaln* George had been fishing 
earlier in the day and had caught a 48 pound barracuda* In the 
West Indies barracuda, is considered poisonous, but this fish, whether 
it is the same thing or not, is delicious* The meat of the chebro - 
tain Is as white as chicken* 
March 11 - 
I awoke early, and looked out the window where a big red 
hibiscus blossom nodded, into the rubber trees whose fragrance filled 
the room. On a nearby palm a bright little green and yellow weaver 
bird was busy shredding himself threads of palm fibre and flying off 
to make them into a nest. Half a dozen boys were cutting the grass 
with scythes, and some little black beetles, small enough to come 
through the fine screen at the window, were deserting the grass for 
the sheets on my bed. Xn fact, it had been their tickling that nad 
wakened me so early. 
At eight o’clock "Circus Echoes" blared forth on the phono- 
graph, and George called in to see if that had awakened us. He told 
us that he had an appointment with the President in Monrovia, and that 
he would take Bill along if he wanted to go. Of course Bill did, 
and they left soon afterwards, to be gone all day. 
I kept busy with unpacking and getting settled, and in the 
late afternoon Bernice and I went for a walk. Hearing strange music 
we stopped to find a little group of natives clustered around a man 
who sat on the ground playing a sort of xyllophone, made of wood 
apparently, which he tapped with two sticks to produce quite a pretty 
tune. Bernice asked if it were a Liberian instrument, and was told 
"No, it came from Prance • " That means one of the neighboring French 
colonies. It reminded us both of the game long in the East Indies. 
The Captain and the Chief Engineer from the Kebar had promised 
to come out to~ the plantation this trip, and they came in with the 
Campbells for drinks before dinner. 
March 12 - 
In the morning we saw the customs house, where our luggage 
arrived bit by bit, being brought up the river on lighters from 
Marshall; went to the Johnsons to see what animals they had for us, 
and found nothing of interest except two baby chimps and two fine 
harnessed antelope; inspected a rice shed, which George said could be 
made into aniaal quarters for us; and saw the Company store, where 
there is a good stock of canned goods for camping, and a small room 
marked "Firestone Employees Only" where one sits around tables and 
drinks beer. 
