The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-19
By HAROLD w. BELCHER


 For the first time in history wom- an-an American woman-will venture across Africa unaccompanied by a white man. She is Mrs. Della J. Akeley, explorer and big game huntress. who is making her third visit to the dark continent. She left New York Tn September, due at Mombasa, on the coast of British East Africa, in Novem- Der. There she will outfit safari or caravan of 50 natives, and proceed up the Tafa river to the great body ot water called Victoria Nyanza, finally reaching the Congo and emerging on the Atlantic coast, she hopes, year later.
 Mrs. Akeley holds commission from the Brooklyn Museum of Arts and Sciences to procure specimens of game and mounting Her real purpose IS to study native baby life, and she pro poses to live in native villages with na- tive women. .-.. h.
 She will also act as correspondent of Tbe Age-Herald and of the North American Newspaper Alliance.
 White haired, very feminine with all the characteristics of the gently reared average woman of American life, she tells in mOdulated tones of nerYe-rack- ing treks and adventures in the African iungles where she has brayed death in a thousand forms.
 It was Mrs. Akeley and Carl Akeley who visited the White House some years ago and so thrilled Theodore Roosevelt that he left for the land of big game few months later. It was Mrs. Axe ley, with only three birds to her credi; as a marksman, who shot charging bullelephant and dropped him six feet from where she stood It was she who wounded lion from the shelter ot T thorn bush and lay there all night while the beasts mates made every hour more bideous with their howls. It was Mrs. Akeley who led a tribe of re. belIious negroes through swamps and forests and cut short an attempt to end her life by changing the mood of na- tives to mirth and the chagrin of her enemies. ..
 Rider Haggard's Alan Helps
 1 talked 10 her in London, where she was met by R. J. Cunningham, upon whose personality and experience H. Rider Haggard, the novelist, built his character Alan Quartermain. Mir. Gun ninghanl. who once escorted her to the 17 .0OO-foot peak of Mt. Keyna, advised her on her present route and equip Inent.
 At Mombasa she will send into the bush for negroes. AS she reaches the territory of new tribes she will have to change bearers. Near the east coast she expects trouble, but as she proceeds into the comparatively barbaric hinter land she believes her cares will mini mize. a,
 Her first danger, she believes, will come from the natives themselves, m cIuding the powerful medicine men. An uneScorted woman never before ha' ventured beyond African civilization The hulf-civilized negroes. of the coast have yet to learn to obey white women in the absence of white men.
 Mrs Akeley will carry an army TP volver and will sleep with rifle handy For immediate protection she hopes tt pick up in MOinbasa two black boys whom she trained some years ago. They would give up their lives, she believes before letting harm came her way.
 Chiefly, however, Mrs. Akeley wll depend upon her woman's wit and re sOurcefulness. She says natives can Dt trned from harmlessness by ridicul' and mimicry. "
 As she penetrates into Uganda, somt tbOU UlilGS lTOuA NuC CuSb NONoAt %A' 7 Akeley will encounter natives unused tC white men and more harmless in char acter. The desire to kill will be mort strong, she says, but the wish to attack woman because she is a woman will be more rare Here she hopes to study them in their own villages, something no white man has ever done before.
 They Spare The Rod
 The world has much to learn from the natives of widest Africa, Mrs Akeley declares. The problem of child birth, for instanee-no problem at al to nature. Native children are seldom ill. Natives seldom punish their chil dren; childing seems enough. Native women never kiss their babies. Monkey mothers dO Mrs Akeley proposes, in cidentally, to study monkey mothers a BIackheads Go Quick