- [first lines]
- Narrator: The Dark Continent they call it. Land of shadowed mystery and ancient menace. And yet, it blazes with light and color. And the face it shows is serene, inviting. This is not the contradiction it seems. For there is not merely one Africa, but a hundred Africas. Various. Changing. Unpredictable.
- Narrator: We get the pictures. A savage vignette of Africa in the raw.
- Narrator: Our arrival was the excuse for a village wingding. Hot music. Dancing in the streets. And all the rest of it.
- Narrator: The dancing gave us the chance to study the peculiar tattoo mutilations which characterize the Basongo-Meno.
- Narrator: The Basongo-Meno have had little contact with civilization, retaining the savage customs of their ancestors. Here, disfigurement is considered a sign of allure and the local beauty shops specialize in carving designs on living flesh. The girls don't seem to mind the treatment any more if they were getting a permanent. But, the cuts are real and deep and they're kept open so that lasting welts will form. The more hideous the scars, the more desirable. Female vanity is no different in Africa than in anywhere else.
- Narrator: The more we traveled through Africa, the less we could understand why it was ever called the Dark Continent. Wherever we went, we found it aflame with color, variety, a kaleidoscope of changing scenes and patterns.
- Narrator: We were well into the interior now and going deeper. We were headed for country where civilization, as we know it, is only a rumor, a myth. We were rolling not only into the backlands, but back into the primitive past.
- Narrator: We arrived in a strange country to meet the world's strangest people.
- Narrator: This was Pygmy country. And here, men still live as they did ages before the first history book was written. Opening diplomatic relations with the past is a delicate business. But, apparently, we looked friendly and our tiny hosts decided to invite us ashore for a visit.
- Narrator: It wasn't beads and trinkets we brought as presents. We had something better: cigarettes.
- Narrator: The jungle communications systems summon neighboring tribesmen to come and celebrate the arrival of the white strangers.
- Narrator: The women began building our sleeping quarters. Papa did his share of offering unwanted advice. But, as usual, the women did all the work.
- Narrator: The Pygmies have learned little through the ages. They cultivate nothing. Have few skills. And are among the most primitive people on earth.
- Narrator: These little people are naturally gay and given to fun and they literally haven't a care in the world.
- Narrator: Childlike in mind as well as in stature. But, they find life good. And they have learned to live together in amenity and agreement.
- Narrator: One of the greatest living historians has written, that should the rest of the world run amuck with atom bombs, only these Pygmies will be left to salvage some fraction of the heritage of mankind.
- Narrator: Bull hippos sometimes do deadly battle over a female.
- Narrator: Here, a thousand miles up the Congo, we came upon the Wagenia tribe - the mightiest river men of Africa.
- Narrator: We also encountered a spectacular mounted troop of the mysterious Fulani, wild Mohammedan warriors in the trappings and arms of the Christian crusaders who came from Europe over 800 years ago. How the Fulani came into contact with the crusaders, adopted their medieval costumes and accoutrements and preserved them through the centuries, is one of the riddles of Africa. But, there they were - the Fulani, untamed and impetuous, horsemen without peer.
- Narrator: Then, as it always does in Africa, the dancing begins.
- Narrator: A tremendous celebration was in progress and the dancers were warming up for the coronation of a Congo king. And there he was in person, the king of the Bakuba, 300 pounds of him resting in all their majesty on the bent back of a hapless slave, who served as a living throne.
- Narrator: The Bakuba were among the last of the Congo tribes to be subdued by the white man and are fiercely proud of their long and glorious tradition.
- Narrator: The chorus line of beauties from the Mangbetu tribe held the spotlight in a dance, featuring colorfully decorated shields.
- Narrator: The Mangbetu are famous for their queer technique of lengthening the skull. By binding fiber tightly around the heads of their babies, they begin a process which lasts throughout life and imparts an egg-like deformity, regarded as the acme of beauty and elegance.
- Narrator: The proudest of the tribes who come to pay tribute to the coronation, are the magnificent Watusi - tall conquerors from the northland who's men grow to gigantic size. Their leader is a chieftain, seven feet tall. Tossing their warrior headdress, they dance out the battle triumphs of their mighty ancestors.
- Narrator: There's passion and frenzy in the dances of Africa. But, there's also marvelous precision, control, the weaving of intricate patterns.
- Narrator: His majesty waddles away to show off to the girls. Three hundred pounds of king, two hundred pounds of costume.
- Narrator: His highness in the harem. And now the king can bask in the adulation of this several hundred wives. Nobody has ever counted the exact number. He keeps them all in line by throwing red pepper in their eyes when they misbehave.
- Narrator: We were deep in wild animal country now, British East Africa. Eighty per cent of the game species of Africa are to be found here. The war years had pretty well depleted the zoos all over the world and we were out to capture replacements, if we could.
- Narrator: We reached our base of operations in northern Kenya, the compound of the famous white hunter, Carr Hartley, veteran big game expert and trapper.
- Narrator: We came across a splendid herd of giraffe and singled out a two-thirds grown animal - the best kind for zoos. Worth about three thousand dollars in the United States.
- Narrator: Back near the compound we found our natives burrowing into the earth in a lather of excitement. We got plenty excited ourselves when they told us what they were after - an aardvark. A zoological rarity. Few people have ever seen one - even in a zoo. Fewer still in its native haunt.
- Narrator: With more digging we discover his nearby mate.
- Narrator: We consulted the Masai, roving herdsmen of Tanganyika. They were shy at first. Shy and too proud to face the camera. But, they thawed out after awhile and they were worth photographing. They were colorful, varied types, with striking features and sometimes an almost Grecian beauty.
- Narrator: That's the happy ending. The ending of our hunting expedition. But, there is no end to the rich and varied pattern of Africa's unfading fascination. All who have seen it carry away with them an unforgettable panorama of its savage splendor. It's endless variety. It's color and it's contrast.
- [last lines]
- Narrator: We carried our own memories away with us. Indelible impressions of that vast, mystery shrouded continent, whose strange appeal once felt, bridges time and space. Is never diminished and never forgotten.