V22/55, cont. 
2 
evening and early morning breeze that makes you feel cooler than the 
thermometer lets you think it is» This too is old stuff perhaps but 
I marvel at the weather, though we do feel the sun and perspire 
freely at midday. 
On the 12th April in Leopoldville I got off one crate containing 
some unwanted gear, a few specimens of invertebrates, sone of Baker* s 
mite collections and these figurines I picked up for you. There will 
be some others as we get .along. On' the 13th we were taken over to 
Brazzaville in PVench Equatorial Africa, virtually a suburb of 
Leopoldville, the latter being the finer, more up to date, and more 
thriving business community. No end of workers (white collar a few) 
go back and forth dally on the little motor ferry boats, 20 minute 
run to the other side. Wish we might send you photos as th^ are M 
being taken, but the pleasure of seeing at looking at them will have 
to await developing, sissembling and labelling. Crossing the Congo 
at Leopoldville to Brazzaville is for all the world like crossing the 
Ouayas River at Guayaquil, except for the language, French here, 
Spanish there— the mighty swiftly flowing river carrying a steacfy stream 
of flotsam and ;Jet 3 am along, the result of frequent and strong up river 
floods and torrential rains, a stea(fy procession of grass patches and 
other vegetation drift rapidly by morning, noon, and night, here and 
there the natives paddle by in dugouts, low hills back up the verdant 
shore line, and just back of the landing place a huge baobob tree just 
as at the Guasraquil, Ecuador river crossing and perhaps even transplanted 
from thence. Indeed the predominating agricultural staples raised in 
this land were originally found only in South America. Life in Brazzaville 
is less hurried and quieter the place seems to be under less pressure 
and push and go and maybe for all its comparative backwardness as compared 
