month or two.
Anstrossi has given me side of cabin where there is room for my cot, so
expect to sleep.

STANLEY POOL, Feb. 22nd, 1907.

DEAR MOTHER:

When you get this, I will be on my way to London. The rest of my stay
here will be on board two boats, touching at the banks of the Kasai
river. One I now am on takes me up and another takes me down. I will
see a great deal that is strange and it is very interesting.
Yesterday, for example, only an hour before our train reached Gongolo
Station, there were three elephants that wandered across the track. We
were very disappointed not to have seen them. At the mission house on
the way up, I brought the first ice the mission boys had seen and when
I put a piece in the hand of one, he yelled and danced about as though
it were a coal. The higher up you go the tougher it gets. Back in the
jungle, one can only imagine what it is like. Here all the white men
have black wives, and the way the whip is used on the men is very
different from the lower congo. The boat is about as large as a
touring car, with all the machinery exposed. I am very comfortable
though, with my bed and camp chair, and, books to read, when one gets
tired of this great, dirty river. I, expect to see hippopotamuses and
many crocodiles and to learn something of the "atrocities" by hearsay.
To see for oneself, would take months. I return from the Kasai
district by a boat like this one, burning wood and with a stern wheel,
reaching Leopoldville, this place, about the 12th of March, and sailing
on the Albertville for Southampton on the 19th of March. So I should
be in London and so very near you by the 8th of April. Of course, if I
take a later boat from here, I will be just that much later. I am
perfectly well, never better. No fever, no "tired feeling" good
appetite, in spite of awful tough food. From this place money cannot
be used and I carry a bag of salt and rolls of cloth. For a bottle of
salt you get a fowl or a turkey, for a tablespoonful an egg, or a bunch
of fruit. When you write be sure and tell me ALL your plans for the
summer; that is, after you have been to see us. My dearest love to you
all.

DICK.

From diary of February 27th, 1907.

Saw two hippos. Thought Anstrossi said they were buffalo. So was glad
when I found out what they were. I did not want to go home without
having seen only two dead ones. In a few minutes I saw two more.
Anstrossi fired at them but I d