This ends the account of Ed's 1950 safari. I have enjoyed serializing it, especially as I had not previously been aware of an African safari other than the 1951 one which I had serialized earlier. (I wonder if the Mau Mau Emergency prevented Ed from embarking on any subsequent trips to Africa.) If anyone who missed that (as it was in the general forum) and wants to read about it, use the search function and just look up Ed's. That should take you to it. It also will provide some background on Ed himself. Thanks to all for their interest.
"Inasmuch as we now had 25 nice trophies and two weeks had almost elapsed, we were ready to start back toward Nairobi, arriving there on March 8.
Having completed our hunting Safari, we were faced with the problem of taking care of our trophies, which involved a considerable amount of red tape. There is a firm in Nairobi that makes it a business to mount the various trophies, or prepare them for shipment. Inasmuch as the mounted trophies are subject to 100 per cent duty, we decided to have them shipped to New York for mounting. Before the trophies could be shipped, they had to be dried and then dipped in strychnine solution, after which they had to be inspected by the game warden. After this was all done, there had to be a number of forms filled out before the trophies could be shipped to the United States.
As an example of how one can get involved in the endless amount of red tape, I made the mistake of paying the firm that prepared my trophies for shipment in East African shillings. Then, after I arrived home, I learned that one could not take out merchandise from East Africa which had been purchased with East African shillings. Such materials or merchandise can only be taken when purchased with money originating outside of East Africa, so I had to get an affidavit from Safariland Limited, the people who took us on Safari, to the effect that I had paid for my portion of the Safari expense with U.S. money; in fact that I had over-paid, so some of this money was returned me when we returned from the hunting trip. Than I had to furnish an affidavit to the effect that I used this money, which was returned to me by Safariland Limited to pay the company that prepared my trophies for shipment, and I also had to get an affidavit from the Bank in Nairobi, verifying that I had paid Safariland Limited by a check drawn on my bank in the United States. With all of these affidavits, I was able to satisfy the Customs that everything was in order so that shipment of the trophies could be made."
On March 13, at 12:05 P.M., I left Nairobi by East African Airlines plane."
