CHAPTER III 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS AND EXPERIENCES 
Lambarene, July, 1913. 
Strict orders had been widely published that only 
the most serious cases were to be brought to the doctor 
for the first three weeks, so that he might have time 
to settle in, but, naturally, not much attention was 
paid to them. Sick people turned up at every hour of 
the day, but practical work was very difficult, as, first 
of all, I had to rely on any interpreter who might be 
picked up on the road, and, secondly, I had no drugs, 
instruments, or bandages except what I had brought 
in my trunk. 
A year before my arrival a black teacher in the 
mission school at Samkita, N’Zeng by name, had offered 
his services as interpreter and doctor’s assistant, and I 
had sent word to him to come to Lambarene imme- 
diately on my arrival, but he did not come because in 
his native village, sixty miles away, he had to carry 
through a legal dispute over a will. At last I had to 
send a canoe with a message that he must come at once, 
and he promised to do so, but week after week went by 
and still he did not arrive. Then Mr. Ellenberger said 
to me with a smile : " Doctor, your education has 
begun. You are finding out for the first time what 
every day will prove to you more conclusively, how 
impossible it is to rely upon the blacks.” 
