Evening star., 1954-06-06

the closest ] came to roughing
it was at q Sprawling old hotel
near the inland border of Kenya.
And roughing it consisted of
sleeping on a clean but hard bed
and making my way the entire
length of the hotel to find a
bathtub that worked. The water
ran brown, sodding the bottom
of the tub, but after a day of
humping over a dirt road, it
didn't seem to matter any more.
Seven Course Dinners
Much more often I stayed at
hotels with private baths. Din
ner was a Seven-courSe affair
with menus printed in fashion,
able French.
Actually, as the tourist moves
through Africa, he will find him
self wanting to get closer and
closer to the old Africa-away
from the cities with their proud
new skyscrapers and the coastal
lands with their neat farms.
Africa gets you that way.
One thing is certain. You
can't take in all of the CONT
nent at one gulp. It presents
too many faces. There is the
new Africa of booming industry,
scenic wonders, the hunters AZ
rica and coastal resorts, the AZ
rica of bush and jungle.
But because the land is criss-
crossed with plane routes, you
can cover great deal of terri
tory in a comparatively short
time. And getting there is no
problem.
For instance, you can take a
luxury ship or a freighter out of
New York bound for Cape Town.
Or you can fly to Europe and
pick up a ship plying the east
or west coast of Africa. Or you
can fly direct to any part of
Africa you choose on any of half
a dozen major airlineS.
Crowding 1t In
MY goal was to pack as much
as possible into two months
without knocking myself out.
In that period, I touched all
points of the compass-Port
Said and the Suez Canal on
the North, Zanzibar on the East,
the Cape of Good Hope on the
South and the Belgian Congo
and French Equatorial Africa
on the West. I flew to Europe
to save time at the start and
took a ship home from Europe
to get a rest at the end.
Outward bound, I joined the
Durham Castle at Genoa. I
chose the ship because it is one
of the Union Castle vessels 60
ing down the east coast of
Africa, loading and discharging
passengers at a dozen ports be-
fore it reaches Cape Town.
Our first stop in Africa was
Port Said, a cherries town with
a. dirty waterfront and too many
soldiers.
There were other signs of ten
sion anti-British posters
plastered all over an Anzac war
memorial, no WOMEN on the
streets, natives searched for
arms as they passed through
the dock gates.
Cleaning in the sunset over
the shabby town were the
golden, mosquitelike domes of
the canal headquarters-the
towns main excuse for being.
One -Woy ConoI
We joined the midnight convoy
through the canal-a military
term for a non-military opera
ton. The canal is a one-way
street. The southbound ships go
through together to Bitter Lake,
where they anchor to let the
northbound convoy go through.
Daylight gave us our first view
of the desert. Beside the canal,
reached by it's waters, the earth
was a brilliant green. But be-
yond was barren land, wind
whipped here and there into
dust clouds.
Port Sudan, the port of the
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan on the
Red Sea. introduced us to the
Fuzzy WuzZies and the tall dig
nified Sudanese. The Fuzzy
Wuzzies are notable for their
mops of hair sticking straight
out in an enormous frame
around their heads. The really
chic ones have thin curls dan
Cling from the mop.
In the daytime, the Fuzzy
Wuzzies work on the docks.
chanting their songs as they
unload. In the evening, many of
them take their camels into the
desert and sleep in the open as
their forefathers did. They keep
their camels from straying by
the simple device of doubling up
one leg and tying a rope around
the knee. A camel can't go far
on three legs.
Near Port Sudan is the village
where Negroes from West Africa
stop on their way to Mecca.