The Cordova daily times., 1920-08-27
TELLS TALE OF
 WEST AFRICAN
 WATER BEASTS

PORTLAND, Aug. 27.-Tales of can. nibals and of man-eating alligators and sharks which infest the waters of West Africa, together with bizarre ex- periences in African coast cities where bananas may be bought for approxi- mately 70 cents a bunch and ordinary shoes are at a premium, are related by w. Riddle Combs, former Port land boy and student at Reed college, who cruised with the steamer Sagi- naw on trip which touched at West African ports.
 MT Combs is the son of w. G. Coombs, superintendent of the local branch of the National Life Fnsur- ance company, whose headquarters are in Chicago. At the outbreak of the late war he enlisted in the navy and received a commission as junior lieutenant. Last November he sailed from Portland on the steamer Sagi- nav, ship built by the Northwest ern Steel company of this city, which took cargo of flour from Portland to New York Shortly after it's ar rival in New York, the vessel was turned over to the A. H. Bull company and was sent to the west coast of Africa with a miscellaneous cargo which included automobile trucks and automobiles
 In his letter to his parents he told of his experiences at various ports in Liberia, Belgian Congo, and the Gold Coast of western Africa. In a letter dated from Accra, Gold Coast of West Africa, he writes about the cannibals in the city of Grand Bas- som:
 "I though that all or most all the cannibal tribes were killed off, but just about two weeks before we got there they killed and ate six persons in the town of Grand BassOm. It seems that the French government had brought about 200 of these canni- bal tribesmen from the interior down to Grand Basso mand were going to make soldiers out of them, but they had been in town only day or so be- fore they began killing and eating people. They got six before the gov ernment put them on a boat and shipped them down to Dakar.
 These cannibals q believe the tribe is called Gourha) live about 800 miles back from the coast and they don't eat any meat except human flesh. Our agent was telling us about how they never bury their dead but eat them, or sometimes dry the body and eat it when the relatives come. When mans wife is sick three days and he kills her, then he must divide the body with her relatives. It they live some distance away he must dry the body and eat none of it until they arrive; if he should eat any part of her before the relatives arrive then they can kill and eat him.
 It's queer but these people will not touch any other meat but human meat. If COW or sheep is killed or dies they bury it. The government gave them some pork to eat and it made them all very sick. Another queer thing about them, when they attack a man and try to kill him, if he kills one of them before they can kill him they will leave him and take the dead man.
 ''The only man of this tribe that was in Grand Bassom was pointed out to me; he had his teeth all filed down to sharp points and his hair was slightly longer than the rest of the niggers; otherwise he looked the same. I understood that all of them file their teeth to points"
 The negroes of Liberia feel that America ss their moth2r country. ac- cording to MT. Combs. In a letter writes fem Monrovia, Liberia, ke he says:
 'HThis country, liberia, has quite an interesting history. It was started by American negroes in the 18th cen- tury and the natives here, or rather the Anerico-Liberians as they call themselves (these are the descep0- ants of the American negroes who migrated to this plac4l consider the United States as their mother country. Their laws are modelled after ours, 8 nd so is their money system. Their