LIFE OF ADVENTURE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22878, 5 November 1937, Page 3

LIFE OF ADVENTURE

STUDYING NATIVES HABITS AND PHYSIQUE WOMAN'S TRIP TO AFRICA An adventurous life evidently appeals to a Chechoslovakian woman who was recently-visiting South Africa. She is Mrs. St. Skulina, whose husband is a scientific collector for the' zoological section of the National Museum at Prague. In the last year Mrs. Skulina has been photographed in the company of Ahdullahi Bayero, chief of the Haussa tribe —with Moro Naba, king of the Mo.shi, the bloodthirsty warriors of Upper Volta —seated beside lions and leopards shot during a hunt in Portuguese East Africa —eonversing with one of the Mangbetu, in the north of the Belgian Congo. In broken English, helped out here and there by a few words of French and a eouplo of swift pencil sketches when all else failed, she amplified this photographic record of 14 months' travel in Africa. A Useful Car Mr. and Mrs. Skulina took a French ship to Dakar, and made their way through Senegal to Timbuktu. In pursuit of beetles, the simplest designation of Mr. Skulina's quarry, they travelled on through West and Equatorial Africa, observing the life of the French and English colonies, both entomological and human. From Lake Chad they journeyed south to the Cameroons, then through Übangi Sliari territory into the Belgian Congo. Striking across to Uganda they came down East Africa to Beira and crossed to Madagascar, where they spent an interesting month. All this travelling was accomplished in their own car, a vehicle which has been endowed with the combined attributes of a pantechnicon and a hotel. Its large roof-carrier is reminiscent of a London taxi, and the interior converts obligingly into a double bed. This little parlour trick was invaluable to Mr. and Mrs. Skulina in parts of the country where there was not even a resthouse —though some of those belied their name with the number of their jigger-fleas and other malevolent insects. Mrs. Skulina is used to this type of travel, as immediately after her marriage, four years ago, she accompanied her husband on a similar trip to the Belgian Congo. Before her marriage she was an instructress in physical culturo, and so takes a professional interest in the spontaneous games and gymnastics of the native children. Study ol Physical Culture On this trip Mrs. Skulina studied the various tribal forms of sport and gvmnastics which can naturally owe nothing to European influence, and will contribute her discoveries to a book on physical culture all over the world, which will bo .compiled and published in Prague. _ With boys to cope with the cooking and camping and capture of specimens, their journey was very civilised 011 the whole, though they had somn unnerving experiences with snakes. In one encounter, in the Congo, her husband was temporarily blinded, and she siient some anxious hours before he recovered his sight.