Monrovia, Liberia

April 22, 1935

Easter Sunday

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Today was regatta day for all the boat boys. Big, heavy, cargo boats, each manned by twelve men and a headman rowed for honor and a three-pound first prize ($15). Eleven boats were entered and nine pulled from the harbor buoy through the bar to the customs wharf on the river. It was grand -- but the boys pulled so hard that the excitement was over too soon. After the boat races came canoe races over the same course, and a couple of them swamped in the bar to round the sand spit. They tried to paddle too close to the breakers rather than keep at right angles to them. It was a grand day with more excitement than any day since I arrived.

Last evening the English mailboat came in about ten-thirty and we had to go out because there was ten thousand pounds ($50,000) in silver on it for us. We slung the money over the side in regular cargo slings into surf boats, and pulled for shore. On the wharf we had two gasoline pressure lamps to light the place while we loaded the money on a Ford truck to haul to the bank. We had no guns and it was much too dark to watch the boys ahead load the money through the warehouse to the truck but we had no trouble at all. Bob will never get over the utter lack of precaution taken but then he hasn't gotten to know the ways of the people yet.