MY LITTLE BUNGALOW.
Above: Distant view, with orange and citron trees in the foreground:
Below: Near view.
CHAPTER III
FIRST IMPRESSIONS AND EXPERIENCES
LAMBARENE, July, 1913.
Strict orders had been widely published that only the most serious cases were to be brought to the doctor for the first three weeks, so that he might have time to settle in, but, naturally, not much attention was paid to them. Sick people turned up at every hour of the day, but practical work was very difficult, as, first of all, I had to rely on any interpreter who might be picked up on the road, and, secondly, I had no drugs, instruments, or bandages except what I had brought in my trunk.
A year before my arrival a black teacher in the mission school at Samkita, N'Zeng by name, had offered his services as interpreter and doctor's assistant, and I had sent word to him to come to Lambarene immediately on my arrival, but he did not come because in his native village, sixty miles away, he had to carry through a legal dispute over a will. At last I had to send a canoe with a message that he must come at once, and he promised to do so, but week after week went by and still he did not arrive. Then Mr. Ellenberger said to me with a smile: "Doctor, your education has begun. You are finding out for the first time what every day will prove to you more conclusively, how impossible it is to rely upon the blacks."