The planning had to be meticulous. There was going to be no chance to go back for things they had forgotten, or to pick them up when they arrived. Everything had to be thought of, bought, carefully packed and crated. They had many friends who voluntarily helped with the work, but there was nobody to finance them. Schweitzer had to raise all the money himself, by begging and by playing the organ.

They set off on their great adventure on Good Friday, 1913. The threat of war was already in the air – and they were German citizens going to work in a French colony! And of course they had little idea of what awaited them.

On the ship Schweitzer said they felt like "poor untraveled home birds" among the old Africa hands: "I could not help thinking of the fowls my mother used to buy every summer from Italian poultry dealers to add to her stock, which for several days used to walk about among the old ones very shyly and humbly.”

A storm in the Bay of Biscay lasted three days, and Schweitzer had not made the baggage fast. “In the night the cabin trunks began to chase each other about. The two hat cases also, which contained our sun-helmets, took part in the game without reflecting how badly off they might come in it, and when I tried to catch the trunks, I nearly got one leg crushed between them and the wall of the cabin. So I left them to their fate.”

Finally they reached Libreville in the Gabon, and set off up the great river Ogowe towards Lambarene, their final destination.

“River and forest…! Who can really describe the first impression they make? We seemed to be dreaming!... It is impossible to say where the river ends and the land begins... white birds and blue birds skim over the water, and high in the air a pair of ospreys circle. Then – yes; there can be no mistake about it – from the branch of a palm there hang and swing – two monkey tails! Now the owners of the tails are visible. We are really in Africa!”

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