The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-06-29
By HAYDEN CHURCH Correspondent of the North American 4rf4 Nar.,eR0r rnae Alliance

Newspaper Alliance.
 LONDON, June 28.--Without as much to-do as greets an ordinary travel Ter, an African explorer has returned to England, and settle down, pro tenn, in an unpretentious flat close to Picca- dilly. Major Claude Wallace, F. R. G. S., is entitled to a notable place among the men who have shed light on the darkest places in the Dark Continent.
 Be has penetrated regions no white man had ever seen, and with perils at every turn has covered 10000 miles His discoveries, already known to some extent to the other Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society, which invited him to lecture, justify the redrawing of inn portant parts of the map of Africa.
 Major Wallace remains the Unknown Explorer to the man in the street because he has refused up to now to tell his story in print.
 Many of his journeys were made in the interests of British industrial firm.
 In 1913, he started on 1. secret mis- sion into a country, portions of which no white man before him had seen. He knew the only government near enough to count would not aid him should he be endangered or take action should misadventure befall him. Once when surrounded by hostile chiefs intent on finding an Englishman to kill, he was saved by a native woman who had fol- lowed him into the jungle, nfter his own carriers had deserted, to tell the tribesmen how his medical skill had saved her from being lifelong invalid.
 His Trip Brings Warships
 A few months earlier, his mere ar rival on the African coast brought threats from the Reichstag and action from the British Foreign Office and sent German mcn-of-war to Liberian waters.
 Incidentally. as the only soldier to zee the battle of Jutland from the main top of British dreadnought-he had q premonition of the battle weeks ahead ---Major Wallace was able to give the first accurate report of the engagement.
 The Unknown Explorer is more than fifty years old; he looks forty. Even his jungle wanderings have never given him a days illness. A direct descend ant of Sir William Wallace, the Scottish hero, he was born in England and reared in Ireland. He has spent nearly ten years in Africa--in Liberia, Angola, and French and Belg:l m Congoes, and along the Ivory Coast. Soon he will leave for a secluded island off the Afri- can Coast, where he will put his experi- ences into a book that, on the strength of a synopsis only, has been snapped up in advance by publishers in England and America.
 q started in January, 1913. on a se- eret mission to report on the hinterland of Liberia, the Negro Republic, found cd by freed American slaves" Major Wallace said when interviewed.
 Unlimited supplies of raw materials were believed to be awaiting exploita- ion there. No definite knowledge was available; no map existed. No white man, we are told, had ever seen the district.
 Germany had interests in Liberia. The president of the republic refused me permission to enter th1 interior except on payment of 10000 pounds. I communicated with the British For tign Office. :.
 Though no one on the coast knew 1t, q war was being fought. by powerful tribes 120 miles in the interior. re- turned alive, after friends had given I'D hope of seeing me, because of a slight interruption in the first days travel.
 Tn a village on the Harper Lagoon, Gravy, a native woman with an ugly open wound on her foot, came upon me. l dressed the wound.
 Imagine my surprise when, survey ing one hundred miles away l met this anne woman. My interpreters Kroo Joy named Glasgow-told me she wanted another treatment. dressed the wound and she again disappeared.
 "A fortnight later, l entered the ter ,itory of the Webo tribe of the Great King Docenu." He laughed at the sound of the name and then added, You must take these titles seriously; they belong .o mighty men. They were at war with the Tuebo tribe. On hearing this my carriers vanished, leaving me alone ex- cent for my boy. I was taken to King Docenu's Kraal, a straw hut like a corn crib with a dirt floor, where he rave me food, cocoa nuts and palm wine. viciously intoxicating. -.
 King Calls Chieftains
 .The king told me all his chieftnins and warriors, from every village, would hold a palava to hear the white man story. The next morning brought thirty chieftnins in war paint and at feast 900 warriors armed with spears, tknocbkerries' (short clubs to crack skulls) and long, narrow shields. l told King Docenu my sole reason for entering his country was to prove the existence of the great palm areas of which had heard, and to take back knowledse of his beautiful country Nv statements were frankly disbelieved.
 Next day, the palava continued, The witch doctors poked their weird faces at me and the chieftains one by one lifted their stools and left. Olas- COW mumbled something that meant the world was not apt to learn much about African jungles from me. remember- ed what had been told about the na- lives hunting for an EnglishmAn to klll.
 ..Precisely at this moment the woman whose foot l had cured, broke through the ring of warriors and fell before the king. uttering cries. Those who nad withdrawn returned. She spoke. Then the throng broke into shouts Of praise. My KrOo boy, Glasgow, cried 'Massa' she save you .., ,.
 This thankful woman evidently had followed to help me II heCtSSHi Atu' ing played her part, she slipped away and I never saw her again. But l was allowed to pass unmolested to the great Sutra range. in which rises the kayalii' and. beyond that. the Niger river"
 Major Wallace was lost in the Devils Forest. after finding pile of human skulls near what ap- nesred to be a cannibal village. He followed pocket compass for fifty miles before emerging from the jungle and. though without food for days, survived to cross the Kavalli river and explore the Ivory Coast with it's sacred ueaked mountains. French authorities Sl nda.l.nl .hinn mt tn nn lhnra IA