Betty Gray

A few miles further on we arrived at the tourist cabins built on the rim of Ngorongoro. .. On learning that a District Officer had moved into the area, we decided to go an introduce ourselves. ... Then we were all alone again and drove until we came to the district officer's abode, a brick bungalow with neat white window frames.

He was away on safari but his young wife told us that the district commissioner had come up that day for a special meeting with the Masai, and was at this very moment in the office. ...

Time passed pleasantly as we sat drinking tea round a log fire on the rim of one of the largest craters in the world. ...

Now we realised that the afternoon had sped into evening. Bob sudenly go up and said he was going to find the district commissioner. In a few minutes they returned together, both of them chuckling.

'If you must drive a vehicle [Chevrolet Carryall] that is usually driven by American missionaries,' he said to me, 'you should attach a large card, both front and back saying, 'WE ARE NOT MISISONARIES.'' The poor man had sat hiding in his office for the past hour, had missed his tea, thinking we were missionaries waiting to see him! This district commissioner had little time for missionaries of any denomination or any nationality, and he made no bones about it. He avoided them as best he could.

We did not stay right in Arusha, but at Lake Duluti, a few miles from the town. This lake, about a mile across, is a little gem of landscape cradled in an extinct volcano. On the rim of the crater are two houses, one belonging to our friends, the Fosbrookes, with whom we stayed, while on the opposite side was the residence of Mrs. Gladys Rydon, a large plantation owner whose hospitality attracted guests from all over the world. On our last afternoon we visited Mrs. Rydon's magnificent place. Her house extended lengthwise and led, at either end, to an elaborate series of lovely terraced gardens which I never tired of exploring. ...