2 
March § - 
Yesterday we passed about a hundred miles north of the 
Cape Verde Islands, and are now only 36 hours from the African 
coast, but although the sun is hot the breeze is still cool, and 
a sweater or coat still feel comfortable on deck* This is the 
calmest day we have had, for although there have been no more 
real storms there has been a steady roll, with a good deal of 
pitching and tossing thrown in* The Chief Engineer said the 
other night that he never remembered a voyage whe’fee it had been 
so "consistently choppy." (Understatement.) 
The time has passed quickly and happily. The missionaries 
are packing today, for they expect to leave us at Dakar the day 
after tomorrow. We shall miss them, for they are most interesting 
to listen to, with their casual tales of river steamers, marauding 0 
elephants, leopards that come Into the mission at night, hunts in 
tne Ubangi country, and stories of the Bantu negroes among whom 
they work. They are taking with them supplies for a couple of 
years, including everything from hymn books to carrot seeds. 
In the evenings when we sit around the radio in the dining room 
we play simple games, the most popular at the moment being "Pick 
up sticks", a sort of jackstraws. To watch Bernice with" her 
small steady hands manipulating one of the sticks with as much 
Intentness as trough her life depended on it, or to watch the 
Chief Engineer, who is the biggest man I've ever seen, with 
enormous hands, working out the stress and strain of the slender 
pieces of wood, is good evening's entertainment. " 
The radio brings us a great deal of both British and German 
propaganda. . Short-wave from the States is directed to South 
Arnei ic a and Is mostly in Spanish or , chr tugue se . Lowell Thomas' 
hour came in clearly for about a week; he gave us news of the 
burning of the Cole Circus in winter quarters and the death of 
Gumdrop, the pigmy hippo born in the zoo and later traded to the 
Circus. Norris had taken care of the animal when it was a baby, 
and he felt expecially sad at learning that it had been, in 
Lowell * s words, "boiled alive in its tank". 
Ocean life has become visible once more after a long 
sti etch o.t apparently uninhabited water. Plying fish made their 
first appearance yesterday; today we have seen a shark, a school 
of porpoises, lots of Portuguese men- of -war, and one tern iwoopinv 
over the water like a swallow over fields at home. 
March 4 - 
We sighted the lighthouse at Dakar at 7.54 last night - 
noting the exact time because we had a sweep on it, which the 
captain won. We stopped for the night, and rocked and drifted 
until morning. A small destroyer came out at about eight 
o clock to lead us into the harbor, and we watched with considera- 
le awe the number of guns on the low hills that enclose the 
harbor* A torpedo and submarine net of heavy wire cable 
oti etches lor about a mile, from the mainland to Goree Island, 
jUot across tne harbor, and on to the mainland again. It is 
marked with floating barrels, and ships coming inter Dakar are 
piloted through a narrow gate which is opened and closed again* 
