Read-aloud uses AI-generated Orakel narrator voices when available. Voice names are Orakel styles, not provider names.
Book: Stories by Mike Doyle Subtitle: An Orakel Family Archive Edition Author: Mike Doyle Story: My Adventures in Africa Mode: Author-owned family archive companion. Boundary: Preserve the story's original wording and family-memory context. Do not invent biographical facts. When asked for context beyond the approved story text, say what is known from the archive and what would need family confirmation. Spoiler rule: Stay inside this story unless the reader explicitly asks about the full collection.
Approved story text: My thoughts were cold, and dank as the fog that surrounded everything that winter morning on the docks of San Francisco. I was going to a small greasy spoon cafe for my breakfast. I often ate here and I knew the food was pretty bad, but it was cheap. This morning was going to be different, although I didn't know that and was feeling very blue. I was blue because I had just recently returned from Alaska, where I had lost a foot.
It had been very difficult to find a job because I hadn't quite learned to walk well on my wooden foot and no one wanted to give me a job. This was going to be a day when I was going to get a job that would turn out to be the best thing that has ever happened to me. I got this job because I met a man called Louella. His name was Lewellyn Leslie Allen. He had been called Lew L. A. since his first year in school and this had made him about half crazy with meanness.
When he was a kid he sure hated being called Louella and was always fighting with some smartmouth kid because of this. I entered the cafe and ordered my breakfast. I sat down next to this man, who looked fairly average. I nodded and said, "Hello." I am always polite and civil, even when I'm blue. He said hello back and suggested that I not order sausage because he thought the owner was grinding up cat meat to make sausage. I agreed that cat meat sausage would probably be bad for my health and had bacon instead.
It's hard to make bacon from cat meat and fool anybody into thinking it is really bacon. Lew appreciated me taking his advice and noticed the meagre breakfast I had ordered. He also noticed my worn, patched clothing. Lew wanted to know if I was working anywhere. I explained that it was difficult for a man to get a job when he had a wooden foot on which he could only hobble. Lew then told me of this new job he had, and said they needed one more man.
He said that if I took this job, when I got through I would be walking so well on my wooden foot that no one would ever be able to tell I had a wooden foot. I said, " What is this job? " Lew told me that there was a company that was going to map the darker part of Africa and needed a couple of helpers. Well, as you can imagine, I jumped at this chance to travel, and to have a job. We sailed from San Francisco on a typical San Francisco winter day. It was cold, dank and foggy.
After sailing for several weeks we landed in a port on the coast of Africa. The rainy season had just ended and everything was a beautiful green. The trees were full of leaves and the grass was tall. This time of the year Africa has the look of a paradise. Lew and I quickly set about hiring a crew to carry our gear. The crew was made up of natives and they had their own straw boss. Mumbala was the straw boss and as he could speak English a little we didn't have to try to learn a native language.
Our boss told us which direction to go and how far we were to go. We were expected to be able to walk a minimum of 20 miles each day. We were told to walk due east for 30 days, then north for 25 days, west for 30 days and then south for 25 days. This was to bring us back to our starting place. We should be back within 120 days having walked 2200 miles with only 10 days to rest. If things went well it would still be a hard job. Lew wasn't about to back down and I couldn't.
Lew says to me, " Mike, if you can't do this job you'll be stuck in Africa with no money, friends or job. You'll probably starve to death." I got a little huffy, and said, "Louella, if you can do it, then by golly I can do it too!" Lew just smiled and says he was only trying to see how serious I was about the job. The little town we were in was nestled between some foothills and the sea. We were quite a pretty sight as we walked single file up the winding path out of town.
Members of the bearer's families had come to wish us well on our journey and some were crying. They were crying because their husbands and fathers were going off into the unknown with a couple of white skinned men from across the sea. That was Lew and me. Lew and I walked in front to set the pace and to point the way we wanted to travel. That first day was hard and long. We wanted to make it to the river Bongo before dark. We made it just at dusky dark and it was full dark by the time we had camp set up.
It was both scary and exciting that first African night. In the far distance we could hear the coughing roar of hunting lions and in the middle distance the whining cry of hungry hyenas. Mumbala merely grinned at our fears. He told us that our party was too large for the lions or the hyenas to bother. He went on to explain that there were plenty of animals easier to catch out on the plains and that we wouldn't be in any danger.
We were also concerned about hostile natives and waterholes, but we were not going to let Mumbala know of our concern. We had been walking 15 days or so and the land was getting more desolate and barren. There had of course been no rain since we started and some of the waterholes were empty. There were vast stretches of land where the grass was beginning to die and the grazing animals were leaving in greater numbers each day. We depended on these animals for most of our food.
With fewer animals we had to measure how much each person ate to be sure everyone got his fair share. Things were beginning to look a little grim. And this was really only the beginning of our journey. It was 2 or 3 days later and we were surprised by natives and taken captive. We had walked up this dusty hill in the sullen, choking heat of mid-afternoon. Dust from our feet would just hang in the air. We were all filthy simply because there hadn't been enough water to wash with.
It was really hard on Lew because he was also worried about me. He was always afraid that I wouldn't be able to keep up. We both almost fainted when these savage looking natives appeared from nowhere. These people were very tall and very dark. They were wearing skins of lions and leopards and carrying the sharpest spears that ever were. These spears were so sharp that it would almost cut your eye just to look at the edge of them. The natives began to scream and dance around us waving their spears in apparent anger.
Our porters were all terrified and I heard running water. Two of the porters were so scared that they had peed their pants. I was too scared for that, I wanted to go to the bathroom but couldn't. I was that scared. Lew was almost as scared but he had sense enough to try to talk to these people. He had noticed that Mumbala wasn't frightened at all and this gave him the courage to talk to them. When our captors had calmed down a little even I could see that they weren't threatening but were welcoming.
Boy, did the other porters tease the 2 who had peed their pants. Mumbala could talk to these people a little and this was their way of welcoming strangers to their land. It turned out that they had seen white people before. There had been missionaries in their land some 18 years or so ago. These missionaries had been well received by the people but had been unable to stay. They hadn't got enough money from home to remain at the mission.
When they had had to leave they had called their daughter several times but she would not answer. She would often do this because she was foolish and thought this was a joke. On the day that her parents had to leave they called and called but she would not come. She had been playing at the edge of the yard and one of the natives had taken her to the stream to wash her. The parents thought that perhaps a wild animal had taken their daughter and much saddened they left their baby girl in dangerous Africa.
The natives had raised this beautiful, blonde and blue-eyed little girl. They had named her Linnia Mallissia, which in their language means "pretty honey". That is why even now I sometimes call her "honey". She was a gorgeous 20 year old when I first saw her and I loved her at first sight. She was the leader of these natives and she wanted for nothing. She wore the most beautiful clothes and had rings of gold on every finger. She also wore little bells of gold on her cute little toes.
servants brought her fruit whenever she wanted it plus sweetmeats and other good things to eat. Linnia really lived in the lap of luxury as the leader of these natives. She was not expected to do any work. As a matter of fact the natives would be angry if she even tried to do any work. When Linnia saw Lew and me she was very excited for we were the first people other than the natives she had seen. She told me later that when she saw me she was determined that I would be her husband.
She said that she didn't care where I was, she was going to be with me. This was whether I liked it or not. I knew nothing of this of course. I really didn't know how to talk to her and seeing how she lived, I knew she wasn't going to want to go with me. At least so I thought. After visiting for a few days we decided to continue on with our job. As we started to leave, Linnia came running up to me making these horrible moaning sounds.
She was rolling around and grabbing at my legs and making the most awful sounds anyone ever did hear. I asked Mumbala what was she saying and he said she was begging me to take her with me. I told him to tell her that if she went with me she would not be cared for as well as she had been here. She said she only wanted to be with me and that nothing else mattered. To prove she was sincere, Linnia carried my pack for the first few days that she was with us and that is how I knew she truly loved me.
We were soon married and since that time I have carried her pack and anything else she told me to carry. In the nearly 30 years we have been married, Linnia has been trying to get me changed into the person she thought I was when she first saw me. We would never have married if it hadn't been for those awful moans. They would have melted my heart if my heart had been made of stone. And that is how Linnia and I met and how she got me to marry her and bring her to America.
That's how it was during my adventure to Africa, back when I was young and foolish.