This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
[[start left-hand page]] [[stamped page number]] 34 [[/stamp]] Guadeloupe 2. went to the British Consulate (as there is no American one on the island) to ask questions. Where is the best place to stay? Can I rent a car without driver? Do I need to register with the Police or immigration officials? He was very accommodating, walking all over town with me to fix things. We found a man who will rent me a car for 1 1/4 francs a mile (less gasoline). We went to see a small local museum in which there are thirty or forty boxes of insects, including two of Staphs, but they are all foreign, unlabelled, and very dirty. Then we went to three places to get our trunk out of Customs (I didn't have to open it at all!). On the 23 [[underlined superscript]]rd[[/superscript]] we went over our plans and made out an entirely new one, including a stay of 4 weeks on Guadeloupe, then a month on each of the other islands, then four months on Cuba, and one on each of Jamaica, Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico. This would save a great deal of time and expense, and allow me to take the motorcycle to three smaller islands. I wrote Ed for his opinion of the plan, and wrote Mr. Bailey in San Juan to ship the motorcycle to Trinidad at once. This plan will be very much more satisfactory than the previous one. [[end page]] [[start right-hand page]] [[stamped page number, upper right]] 35 [[/stamp]] [[left margin note]] X-25-35 [[/margin note]] We had made arrangements to hire the car today to drive to Basse-Terre and St. Claude. In the morning I went to the office of the National Gendarmerie to get a driver's license. They telephoned to [[strikethrough]] Poi [[/strikethrough]] Basse-Terre and finally decided that I [[underline]] would [[/underline]] need one but could get it only in the capital. One of the gendarmes was recently in Cayenne, [[strikethrough]] and [[/strikethrough]] escorting a prisoner, and while there collected some large butterflies, moths, beetles, scorpions, and hummingbirds, and mounted them in two large boxes. The owner was not in at that time, but one of the other gendarmes indicated that if I would come back, he might be willing to give them to me. I shan't go! After lunch we waited for the car to arrive. It came at two-thirty and we started across. Most of the flat parts of the island seem to be in sugarcane, and it was frequently so high that couldn't over it. But we had several fine views of the mountains, including Soufrière and several smaller volcanic cones. We arrived in Basse-Terre about 4[[underlined superscript]]30[[/superscript]] and went immediately to the office of the Treasurer to pay the 100.25 francs for permit to drive. The receipt we then took to the Chief of the 2[[superscript]]nd[[/superscript]] Bureau, M. Zerbid, who escorted us over to find the man [[end page]]