On Board S.S. Padnsay

Jan. 27, 1934

We are off the coast about thirty or forty miles and the desert is a couple of hundred miles from the coast but the wind blowing from the desert carries with it a fine, small sand. The sand is like and the same color as men's talcum but it is so thick that it makes a halo around the sun and it is impossible to see the horizon. The dictionary gives it a definition but I will tell you what it means to us if we have it in Monrovia.

The Captain has a full cargo waiting for him down the coast and he is in a great hurry to get down there, so he not only made Tenerife but also Las Palmas in the same day. We saw the every-day life at Tenerife and the night life at Las Palmas. When we finally got aboard the ship we had to stay up until four-thirty when the ship sailed because the steam winches were lifting cargo.

Tenerife, as you know, is the place where Lord Nelson got his arm shot off. The Spaniards have the canon that did the work - so they say - mounted and placed in the museum. Another thing they have there is the heart of Saint Andrew, or some Saint, all preserved; of course, that is in the Cathedral.

Las Palmas was all cabarets, saloons and beautiful gardens, as far as we could tell because all the store windows had great iron shutters drawn. The cabarets were foul; the saloons, hundreds of them, we did not bother. . .