Captain Vince Gulliver and the African Journey
"Tickle me pink," he said. The deafening beat of the drum wailed throughout the village. "Louder! Louder!" The Chief could be heard through his deep bass voice which was even lower than the pounding drums. The adventurer, Captain Vince Gulliver, was two weeks into his African journey when he came upon the village of the Anzatanoian natives of the Southern part of West Africa. Later, in his journal, Captain Vince Gulliver would write about the fierce hatred of the Anzatanoians. He said there must have been 50 men, and just as many woman and children around a huge fire, where another man was dancing. On the outside of the dancing and the large group was a platform where a man dressed very elaborately stood over three young men, who looked scared and excited at the same time. The Captain wrote how he found the tribe weaving through the many high grasses that covered West Africa. He first laid eyes on them as the tribe was participating in what could only have been a celebration of the heathen gods they worshipped. "Koy yo tay, tay yo tay. Koy yo tay, tay yo tay," they repeated over and over on the beat while the doctor of the village, a man they refered to numerously as "Muchubo," danced around the fire that was in the middle of the village.
Captain Vince Gulliver peered through the tall grasses, watching the devilish ritual, and said to himself "tickle me pink." Gulliver sketched the dancers and the entire ceremony. During his sketching, the Captain looked up and noticed that the doctor Muchubo handing the Chief a small animal and the Chief bit off the head of the animal, spit it into the fire, and drained the blood onto the heads of three small children in front of him. The night wandered on, and the great adventurer continued to mark down notes, until he lost control of his pen and it flipped into the sky, over the high grasses and landed near the celebration. The drums' sound drained away, and the path of the pen was followed to the perimeter of the village, near the tall grasses that the Captain Vince Gulliver was watching their ritual. It was then the eyes of the Captain and the Chief met, and then looked at each other for a second before the Chief called out for his villagers to get whoever was in the grasses, and the Chief bolted off back into the woods and then further into the wide savannas of West Africa. "Bong dang it," Captain Gulliver exclaimed during his run into the night,"Bong dang the Anzatanoians."
Captain Vince Gulliver of the First Adventure Club of America was a founding member. Before the founding in 1937 by him and other great adventurers, Captain Gulliver worked as a foreign correspondent for the Washington Post. He had been stationed in Bangkok, Siberia, Argentina and Madagascar, and dozens of other places that people would have dreamed to be. In that time, he had taken on in addition to being a journalist the position of a travel guide for visiting Americans. Among them was another great adventurer Harold V. Wusserdon. While stationed in Madagascar in 1932, Gulliver acted as the travel guide and translator for Wusserdon while the aging philanthropist was traversing the world one last time. It was there that Wusserdon, surprising able-bodied for a 55 year old, inspired Gulliver, only age 24, became life long friends until Wusserdon's death. The two went on one adventurer while they were on the island, retrieving the legendary Guadolapourato silver coins that were supposedly buried by Spanish settlers back in the 1370's. The coins, 500 shaped in ovals with the mark of the Queen, would be quite a valuable and interesting prize to any adventurer. This was before Gulliver had kept a travel log, and Wusserdon's story is quite lacking, but the details of the story are wonderful. They went on a 16 day trek into the mountains, defeating lions and cobras and angry villagers who had a taste for human blood ("the savages"). The luck they had was finding a lost missionary in the woods who was able to act as their guide through the deep mountain forests. The missionary, a calm mannered woman named Sara Burbunk, became the bridge to Gulliver and Wusserdon and the locals who eventually led them to their prize: the Guadolapourato silver coins. Some were missing, but a total of 487 were brought back. Also brought back was Sara Burbunk who eventually married Harold V. Wusserdon.
After that trip with Wusserdon, Gulliver always made sure to go on at a least one adventure every year wherever he traveled for his work. By the time he founded the First Adventure Club of America with other great American adventurers, he had been praised and given the title Captain for his retrieval of ancient artifacts from around the globe and for his exploration of foreign cultures. Gulliver and the club became famous. It was said that if one wanted to know where to find excitement in the world, start with the First Adventure Club of America. The club met twice a year in New York City to discuss their findings and another one time to discuss membership. The criteria was strict and few were granted membership. The ones who were, however, did not disappoint and added their own uniqueness to the club. Gullver was known for his study of foreign culutres, Wussderdon for artifacts, and Sumth, another member, was very interested into danger and excitement. General Richard R. Sumth (Dick Sum his close friends, who he had very few, called him) was a young retired veteran of the US Military who chose to spend his time traveling the globe looking for ways to risk his life, including climbing and diving and even swimming with sharks. He once drank snake venom because a charmer told him a single dose of it would kill him. The strong man he was, Sumth conquered through the venom and had the snake for dinner the next day.
Therefore, it was in the Winter of 1938, almost a year since the First Adventure Club of America was opened, that Gulliver and Sumth decided it was time for a trip to Southern West African. They set out the day after Christmas, saying goodbye to their families, Gulliver was never married and Sumth had a wife and two children (a young boy and a teenaged daughter), from the port of New York harbor on a ship set for the coast of Africa, after making one stop in England, with luggage enough for three months. This adventure would be no vacation and relaxing would be kept to a minimum. For Gulliver, it was a chance to see African cultures up close, and for Sumth it was another chance to risk his life and laugh at danger before he gave it a chance to gloat. Everyone, excluding the members of the club, told them they were mad for traveling across the ocean just to risk their lives. "I could kill you here." "Haven't you gone to enough places already?" There was no budging, the ship set sail and the two club members were aboard on their African Journey.