Travels in West Africa

Naturally, while my intellect was occupied with considering these warnings, I became determined to go, and I felt I must. Fortunately, I could count among my acquaintances one individual who had lived on the West African Coast for seven years. It is true he had not lived in the specific part I was headed for. Still, his advice was especially worth considering because, despite his long residence in the most lethal spot of the region, he was still in reasonably good health. I told him I intended to go to West Africa, and he said, "Once you have made up your mind to go to West Africa, the very best thing you can do is change your mind and go to Scotland instead; but if you aren't sensible enough to do so, avoid exposing yourself to direct sunlight, take 4 grains of quinine a medication used to prevent and treat malaria every day for two weeks before you reach the Oil Rivers A region in the Niger Delta, then a British protectorate, and get some introductions to the Wesleyans Members of the Methodist Church; they are the only people on the Coast who have a hearse with feathers A humorous, dark reference to the high mortality rate and the formal funeral equipment of the missionaries."

My attention next turned to preparing the things I needed to take with me. Having invited a flood of advice, I quickly became overwhelmed. My friends and their friends alike seemed to suffer from the delusion that I intended to hire a whole steamship and was a person of wealth beyond the dreams of greed. The only thing to do in this situation was to listen gratefully and let things take their course. They showered me with various preparations of quinine and other so-called medical comforts, mustard plasters a medicinal dressing of mustard seed paste applied to the skin, a patented water filter, a hot-water bottle, and last but not least, a large square bottle supposedly containing malt and cod-liver oil. This last item, reacting poorly to the African heat, burst in a rage, spat out its cork, and proved itself to be an effective but very unpleasant-smelling glue.

It is not only the things you have to take, but the containers you have to take them in, that present a complex series of problems to the young traveler. A crowd of witnesses testified to the types of bags and trunks they had found essential, and these, it is unnecessary to say, were all different in shape and material.

With all this overwhelming variety of choices original: "embarras de choix", I was too distracted to buy anything new in the way of luggage, except for a long waterproof sack neatly closed at the top with a metal bar and—