Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1899 — The Impossible She. [ARTICLE]

The Impossible She.

Miss Mary Kingsley, the Intrepid explorer, has recently related a personal experience in “The Woman at Home” which shows the disadvantage at which a “feminine bachelor” finds herself in a cannibal country. Not, we hasten to add, because a spinster Is less toothsome than a matron, but because cannibals do not understand the bachelor woman. Miss Kingsley had to answer many embarrassing questions In West African wilds as to why she had not a husband and family, and found it awkward to explain her position. On one occasion she was kvg rowed to Andaude by a native who called himself Samuel. His wife sat in the stern of the boat. Presently Samuel began a conversation in his best English. ‘ t *Where be your husband, mar asked he, after looking at Miss Kingsley curiously for a time. “I no got one,” she answered. “No got!” said Sam, paralyzed with astonishment. After an interval he recovered himself and returned to the charge. “No got a husband, ma?” “No,” said Miss Kingsley furiously. “Do you get much rubber round here?” “Me no trade man,” replied Samuel, refusing to fall into her trap for changing conversation. “Why you no got one, ma?” “Because I haven’t,’* retorted Miss Kingsley. But this Intensely feminine reply failed to satisfy Samuel, and she had to run the gantlet of further questions and comments until her adventures In wading swamps, shooting rapids and penetrating forests, In which she had hitherto felt pardonable pride, paled to insignificance beside the greatest of all adventures, to the cannibal mind, that of getting married. Then', to cap It all, It was not long before it was generally believed in West Africa that she was a sort of Dido, Queen of Carthage, in search of a husband!