Throw Me a Bone, by Eleanor Lothrop
Come, Tell Me How You Live, by Agatha Christie Mallowan
***
In near synchronicity with
the publication of Agatha Christie Mallowan’s memoir of her archaeological
adventures with husband Max Mallowan, Come, Tell Me How You Live, another archaeological wife on the other side
of the world told her story. Eleanor Lothrop demonstrated a sense of humor to
rival Agatha’s in her 1948 memoir, Throw Me a Bone, about her adventures of the 1920’s through 1930’s with
American archaeologist husband, Samuel Lothrop.
The early 20th
century was still a time when women often could only enter archaeology in
partnership with their husbands, but both Christie (in a rare use of her
married name Mallowan) and Lothrop don’t waste time or ink complaining.
Instead, both books brim with zest for all things archaeological. All things,
that is, except fleas. Admittedly, cockroaches, mice and snakes were not among
their favorite companions while camping at desert sites in the Middle
East or (in Lothrop’s case) South American jungles. But the worst of these were
fleas.
“At the time I met my then
future husband,” Lothrop writes, “I led right off with the Acropolis, the Forum
and King Tut and was started when my companion, rudely interrupting, said, ‘I
am an American archaeologist.’
She answers, “‘I know the
Lothrops come from Boston. So what?’ But it seems I had missed the point. An
American archaeologist, it was explained, in an archaeologist who specializes
in the archaeology of the Americas—North, Central and South.”
Despite this inauspicious
start, Sam soon proposes marriage and they are off on what she thinks is a honeymoon
in Chile. It turns out to be the start of an expedition to a tiny port town
which can only be reached by boat, in this case, a cattle boat which Eleanor realizes too late is infested with fleas. (And whose illustration,
without fleas, illustrates today’s post.)
“‘What do you expect on a
cattle boat?’” Sam asks, with maddening realism.
It’s a pity Eleanor and Agatha
hadn’t been able to compare notes.
“We are to suffer a good deal
from fleas,” Agatha writes in Come, Tell
Me How You Live. “It is not…so much the bites of fleas. It is their
tireless energy, their never-ending hopping races round and round one’s middle
that wears one out. Impossible to drop off to sleep when fleas are holding
nightly sports round and round the waist.”
Even stoic Max (who once informed
her that she wouldn’t notice mice running over her face if she was asleep)
suffers from fleas.
“One day I find and kill one
hundred and seven in the band of his pyjamas!…It would appear that I only get
the overflow of fleas—the ones, that is, which have not been able to take up
their abode on Max. Mine are second-class, inferior fleas, ineligible for the
high jumps!”
And yet, they keep coming back for more. “Each time we wind
up an archaeological trip,” Lothrop writes, “I look forward to the same things.
No scratching. Lying in bed late, soaking in a hot bath. Plumbing. Ice water
and fresh milk. Raw celery and lettuce. Plumbing. Movies and theatres.
Plumbing!
“And what happens? About a
month of these delights and I get restless. It never fails. Sam comes home from
work, sinks into a comfortable chair in his comfortable bugless apartment and
tries to appear ecstatically happy.…I usually say it first. ‘This is the life!
It’s wonderful; no doubt about it. But when
oh when are we going where?’”
(Next Friday, Adventure
classics continues a January of true adventures with the Mallowans and
Lothrops. For more about early women in archaeology, I liked Amanda Adams’ Ladies of the Field, which I also reviewed at Goodreads and Amazon.)
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