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-64-

June 21 - 

Up early, and off on our last bush trip - this time headed for the Polish Plantation.

We left our house about half-past seven, with a big Diamond-T truck ahead of us carrying forty boys and our gear, and Chancellor's pick-up carrying more gear and our personal boys. The truck drove so slowly that we dawdled along the way ourselves, stopping at Woerman's No. 8, Watson's house in Kakata, Henry Cooper's house near Salala, and did not reach Salala until almost noon. There we found Commissioner Watson, who grudgingly gave us a pass, made out to Chancellor, not to us, for three days only at the plantation. Watson had one of his men bring a big monkey-eating eagle, and offered to sell it, but we did not want to buy it on the way up-country and said we would see about it when we returned.

Salala was swarming with people, for this is the last day of a week's conclave of district chiefs. Messengers kept coming up to the Commissioner while we were talking to him, and we heard one soldier say "But he killed the woman." W. explained that a man had been arrested and thrown into jail for attempting to murder his wife; whereupon he escaped from jail, went back and finished the job, and then vanished into the bush.

From Salala we set out on foot, but it was noon and the sun was hot, and we did most of the trip in hammocks. Just before reaching Reputa we stopped on a shady bank by the river to eat our lunch. While we ate I was nervously eying the bridge over the river; it was high, and the stream broad, and it looked as though it would be unusually difficult for me who hate these native bridges. ^[[Most of]] Our carriers went over, stepping gingerly from pole to pole, but some of them after starting would turn around and wade the river instead. We watched our movie camera equipment carried across, with the boy sweating under the heavy load. Another boy was in the middle of the bridge, when suddenly a whole section of it, perhaps thirty feet, gave way with a crash, and fell in a jumble of rotten logs fifteen feet into the water. When we got our breath, we called out to the boy to ask if he were still alive. He picked himself up, rescued his load, put it on his head, and scrambled over the debris safely to shore. It was not even one of our boys. With more than forty of our own natives, it was a complete stranger who had the mishap. Our hammocks had to come back to our side of the river, and carry us across, wading waist-deep through the water.

From Reputa it is a forty-five minute walk to the Plantation. We had been told that there was a caretaker there with keys, but it took three hours to find him, while we sat on the verandah surrounded by our baggage, and admired the encircling, jungle-covered hills.

This plantation was started about eight years ago, subsidized by Poland, presumably with the idea of settling a Polish colony here. The men they sent out were not agriculturally minded, and although they planted a good many acres they knew little or nothing about the cocoa-raising which they were supposed to be doing. When Germany invaded Poland they abandoned the farm as quickly as they could get transportation back to Europe, and it has been deserted ever since.