:10:03
What's wrong?
:10:05
Don't you ever get excited anymore?
:10:14
To Mr. Lucien Herr,
College of Advanced Education...
:10:19
45 rue d'Ulm,
Fifth Arrondissement, Paris...
:10:22
in care of Administrator Tarato...
:10:24
St. Pierre de Samba,
French Equatorial Africa.
:10:31
Fort Coulais,January 6, 1 9 1 5.
:10:35
Dear teacher and,
if I may, dear friend.'
:10:39
Here is my punishment for not excelling
in nobler gfields of study.
:10:43
I should be teaching Greek
in one of those pleasant schools...
:10:47
of which our province is so proud...
:10:49
but instead here I am
under a summer sky...
:10:52
wandering through virgin savannahs...
:10:54
picking native grasses
and collecting mineral specimens.
:10:58
What good fortune
to be a simple geographer.!
:11:07
Africa is far from being the hell
depicted in writings from the colonies.
:11:13
Where I expected
to encounter gfierce beasts...
:11:16
I fiind only dogs, cows, chickens...
:11:19
and the occasional duck.
:11:21
Where I expected ferocious savages...
:11:23
armed with spears, lances
and poisoned arrows...
:11:27
ready to turn all travelers
into a quick meal...
:11:30
I meet only peaceful villagers...
:11:32
whose pastoral lives remind me...
:11:35
of the country folk
in many parts of our own land.
:11:43
The only dangers I battle here
are boredom...
:11:46
and the company
of a handful of our compatriots...
:11:49
with whom I must rub elbows.
:11:54
Listen,just because it's my turn
to be on watch tonight...
:11:57
you don't have to take
such a long siesta.
:11:59
Don't worry.
There's lots more for you.