The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-12-29

Copyright, 1912. by Curtis Brown) oNDON, December 2s.-(special)- Imagine an American woman in the 4-< heart of Africa acting as arbitrator between two cannibal chieftains whose respective tribes were on the brink of war. eArbitrating' so successfully, too, that the dusky parties" jointly declared themselves her slaves thereafterl
 The woman who did that is Mrs. Mar suerite Roby, who, though not born in the United States, now claims it as her couh- try. This queer experience is only one of many she had in the course or an 5000 mile tramp recently through the most ly cannibal and largely uneXplored kasa1 country in the Lower Congo region of Africa, with no other companion than the natives who carried her baggage
 Mrs. Roby, who is a widow, is really beautiful woman, and quite the last one in the world whom you would take for an explorer of savage lands. She is Spanish by birth and shows it, possessing dark eyes and the blackest of hair an almost perfect figure and a creamy complex ion, but she lived for some years in the United States and was married there, and is now an American to all ntents and purposes. Incidentally, she is what Is known in this country as well plucked 'un." She went all alone, to explore the less known parts of Congoland, mainly to find out if what she read about the atroci- ties reputedly practiced there in connec- tion with the rubber industry was true, and while doing so she just escaped death half a dozen times. More than once she narrowly missed furnishing a meal for savage natives, and she had several close calls with wild animals, and, while in the heart of Africa, with no one near but her native carriers, she came within an ace of dying of black water fever, from the eff of VtrI,fa -1,a hoe covered.
 Luckily for herself, Mrs. Roby knows quite a lot about the factoring business. Her first husband was a Philadelphia physician, and she herself studied medi- cine with her second husband, who was a New York man, and this knowledge not only kept her from succumbing to dis ease while on her African travels, but also helped her to gain the regard of several native chiefs whose intentions previously had not been benevolent. While on her long tramp this pluclSy woman wore male dress, and slept every night with a loaded revolver under her pillow, but when she received the writer the other day at London hotel, she was wearing a green Japanese kimono, embroidered with scarlet, which became her dark beauty to perfection. A guess would put her age at 42 or 43 and she looked amazingly fit con sidering all she has gone through since sue nrSI set lOol on une QarK continent, nearly two years ago.
 1T was well on my way to Australia when I suddenly made up my mind to ex- plore in Africa" she said, and this voy- age, which was purely a pleasure one, was only an episode in what really has been a life of travel. l completed my first tour of the world when I was If in company with my brother, and since then there is hardly a corner of the globe into which | have not DeeDed.
 While on my way to Melbourne" Mrs. Roby went on q read one of E. D. Nor els books on the Congo, and the state ments made in it mortified me to such an extent that l felt I just had to go and see if they could be true. This was in September, 1910. On my way back, there fore. disembarked at Durban and start ed on my first trip through the Upper Congo. starting from Elizabethville, with Lake Victoria Nyanza as my objective"
 Mrs. Roby got eventually to the lake that was discovered by Livingstone, but her first expedition in the dark conti- nent was a long way from being a suc- cess, trader whom she engaged as guide and manager proving a "bad egg" One morning she woke to find that he had bolted in the night and taken the whole