Viewing page 157 of 185

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

-127-

September 1 - 

I have never known, or imagined, anything like the heat of to-day. Number 6 is a veritable Hades, and all the animals are suffering badly. One of Coolidge's bears had a heat stroke, and Jennier rushed him up on the boat deck, where there was no coolness but a bit of breeze, and dashed cold water over him in an effort to bring him to. To everybody's great amazement, the little bear recovered. A little later, when I was down feeding the gibbons, the big black siamang had a similar seizure. Jennier took him out of his cage, and stretched him out on a shady part of the deck. He was unconscious and twitching all over. 

All of us were soaked with perspiration all day, whether we were working or simply sitting still. 

Bill and I slept out on the deck at night, to avoid another sleepless night like last night. A little breeze came up, and it was not too bad. 

September 2 - 

We put into Port Sudan at six in the morning, and a few minutes later the stevedores were on deck, and starting to unload the cargo we had for this port. Many of them were Fuzzies, and I was much entranced with their great mops of curly, woolly hair. Some of them have it all standing on end, some of them comb part of it down to form corkscrew ringlets around their neck. They all sing and chant and laugh a great deal as they work. ^[[Gibbon watched from porthole]]

I went below early, to get morning's work done so that we could go ashore. Davis, Jennier and Gaddi were all prowling around with flashlights, looking behind cages and under bales of hay in a most mysterious way. Davis was nearly in tears. The pythons we bought in Karachi had escaped from their cage in the night, and had killed seven birds, including five jungle fowl, a peacock (the one we got at Trenganu), and an owl from Sumatra. Jennier asked me how many pythons I thought there had been in the box. I said we had ordered [[strikethrough]] four [[/strikethrough]] ^[[five]], but Bill thought there were only [[strikethrough]] three [[/strikethrough]] ^[[four]]. "Well, we got [[strikethrough]] three [[/strikethrough]] ^[[four]]," he said, "so I suppose that is the lot."

The simang that had heat stroke yesterday is still alive, but he looks pretty miserable and headachy. He ate part of a banana and then vomited it. All the small mammals are hanging listlessly on their shelves, interested only in copious drinks of water. 

We had ordered four giraffe and two buffalo and two shoebills from the Sudan Government, and they were waiting for us on flat cars right on the wharf. It was a gret sight to see four giraffe heads sticking out of crates, and busily eating breakfast as they waited their turn to come aboard. 

Jennier got clawed by the black leopard this morning as he was feeding it. Fortunately he instinctively jerked in the right direction, so he pulled the claw right out before it had a chance to rip him badly. 

Bill went ashore to see the giraffe, and then had a session