Two native Africans visit England and have a public meltdown when they see dinosaur bones at the museum, believing the British created them and would be punished by God. They also giggled incessantly at the theater!

posted by LockeProposal on HistoryAnecdotes

[The following is in regards to a visit to England by Englishman Sir Stewart Gore-Browne, who had taken with him two of his African helpers from his estate in Central Africa.]

They are like children in many ways, he wrote to Ethel [his aunt], so easy to please and so open with their emotions. He loved to order champagne for them, not to get them drunk – they could not hold their alcohol – but because the bubbles made them so happy.

[…]

They were no longer so scared of motor cars to he took them across town, showed them 7 Kensington Square and 11 Onslow Gardens, the white Victorian house in Kensington where he had been born and grown up, and then the Natural History Museum. That was something of a disaster – he had taken them into the dinosaur hall, where Bulaya was so terrified he had tried to bolt. As Gore-Browne recounted later to Ethel, he had explained that before there were men there were dinosaurs, but Kakumbi was having none of it.

’In our land the royal crocodiles and spirits ruled,’ he insisted, ‘these creatures must be British.’ Bulaya was almost hysterical, refusing to believe that dinosaurs had ever existed. Staring at the tyrannosaurus, he asked, ‘How could they walk, bwana, the heads are too heavy and they would topple over?’

The brontosaurus he found funny. ‘It’s head is too small to eat animals. Not like the elephant, that is a proper animal.’ Bulaya had an awed respect for elephants, having lost his own father to one in the forest near the lake. Then he had seen the Pterodactyl, and started screaming, ‘God will strike man down for creating such horrible creatures.’ So much for education.

At that point Gore-Browne had given up, bought them ices to calm them down, and taken them to see a moving picture. They had giggled so much that he had had to take them out before the end to escape the wrath of the frowning usherette and the rest of the audience.

Source:

Lamb, Christina. “Part One: 1914-1927, Chapter 4.” The Africa House: The True Story of An English Gentleman and His African Dream. Harper Collins Publishers, 2004. 58-9. Print.

Further Reading:

Dame Ethel Locke King, DBE

Lieutenant Colonel Sir Stewart Gore-Browne, DSO

[**The following is in regards to a visit to England by Englishman Sir Stewart Gore-Browne, who had taken with him two of his African helpers from his estate in Central Africa.**] >*They are like children in many ways*, he wrote to Ethel [**his aunt**], *so easy to please and so open with their emotions*. He loved to order champagne for them, not to get them drunk – they could not hold their alcohol – but because the bubbles made them so happy. >[…] >They were no longer so scared of motor cars to he took them across town, showed them 7 Kensington Square and 11 Onslow Gardens, the white Victorian house in Kensington where he had been born and grown up, and then the Natural History Museum. That was something of a disaster – he had taken them into the dinosaur hall, where Bulaya was so terrified he had tried to bolt. As Gore-Browne recounted later to Ethel, he had explained that before there were men there were dinosaurs, but Kakumbi was having none of it. >’In our land the royal crocodiles and spirits ruled,’ he insisted, ‘these creatures must be British.’ Bulaya was almost hysterical, refusing to believe that dinosaurs had ever existed. Staring at the tyrannosaurus, he asked, ‘How could they walk, *bwana*, the heads are too heavy and they would topple over?’ >The brontosaurus he found funny. ‘It’s head is too small to eat animals. Not like the elephant, that is a proper animal.’ Bulaya had an awed respect for elephants, having lost his own father to one in the forest near the lake. Then he had seen the Pterodactyl, and started screaming, ‘God will strike man down for creating such horrible creatures.’ So much for education. >At that point Gore-Browne had given up, bought them ices to calm them down, and taken them to see a moving picture. They had giggled so much that he had had to take them out before the end to escape the wrath of the frowning usherette and the rest of the audience. ___________________________ **Source:** Lamb, Christina. “Part One: 1914-1927, Chapter 4.” *The Africa House: The True Story of An English Gentleman and His African Dream*. Harper Collins Publishers, 2004. 58-9. Print. ___________________________ **Further Reading:** [Dame Ethel Locke King, DBE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_Locke_King) [Lieutenant Colonel Sir Stewart Gore-Browne, DSO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Gore-Browne)

1 comments

[–] Justintoxicated 3 points (+3|-0)

‘God will strike man down for creating such horrible creatures.’

I said the same thing when I first saw the Spice Girls

Two native Africans visit England and have a public meltdown when they see dinosaur bones at the museum, believing the British created them and would be punished by God. They also giggled incessantly at the theater!

1 comments

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