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We had only been in the house a few minutes when Dr. Tate of the American Museum turned up. He has been marooned for six months in Cape Palmas, and only got to Monrovia now because Firestone insisted on the Barber Line rescuing George Seybold and the other planters there, and they all came up together on the Cathlamet. Tate has had even a harder time than we have had in regard to permits, and is still trying to get the government's consent to his shooting two chimpanzees.

June 27 - 

Spent the morning at the rice shed, and were glad to find both hippos still flourishing, and two wild hogs added to the collection.

June 28 - 

The Seybolds and the Campbells were here for dinner, and we had a most pleasant evening. Much of the time was spent discussing Wendell Willkie, who was nominated last night by the Republican Convention. Concensus of opinion: he can't beat Roosevelt, if F.D.R. runs for a third term.

July 4 - 

The days drag by, waiting for news of our steamer. We hear that it is having difficulty loading down the Coast on account of bad weather. Much of its cargo is lumber, and when the surf is high it is impossible to get the big logs out from shore to the ship. Sometimes it takes two surf boats to tow one big log, and if a wave catches it and tosses it onto the boatmen serious injury or even death results.

Bill is getting more bored and more restless every day. Life on the plantation is comfortable, but there is nothing to do. The everlasting rubber surrounds us for miles on every side; continual rain keeps us from doing even what entomology and herpetology might be done here; the rice shed is too far away to be visited more than once a day. I enjoy the inactivity as little as he does, and spend most of my time playing solitaire, reading Sherlock Holmes and swimming once a day in the nice little pool in our back yard.

Today was one Fourth of July I shall never forget. It began with having Mr. and Mrs. Pallant here for breakfast. Mrs. Pallant an Englishwoman, is about to have a child, and because of severe pelvic injuries suffered in an automobile accident is unable to have it normally. Dr. Campbell and Dr. Fusek, the two leading doctors here, both refuse to perform the Caesarian that will be necessary, and want her to go to England or the States. She has tried to get into the hospital at Freetown, but they have turned her down also. She is frightened to go to England with the war news what it is, and invasion threatened at any moment, and dreads taking a long sea trip to a country where she has no friends or relatives. She decided last night to take the Barber boat to Freetown today and see if a personal appeal to the hospital there would not have better results than the letter she sent previously; then we talked her into agreeing to go to the Stares, preferably to Johns Hopkins.