18 OCTOBER 1940, Page 26

AT the age of seven Osa met Martin (the familiarity

may be forgiven, for this autobiography is nothing if not familiar): he took her photograph for ten cents in a studio in Kansas. It was the right opening to a career of many photographs—photo- graphs in the South Seas, in Borneo, in " darkest Africa," Osa in Hawaiian costume, Osa on a " cannibal beach " (with five trunks and some boxes), Osa with native chiefs, Osa on her houseboat home in Borneo, Osa and a tame zebra, Osa's bedroom, Osa's motor-car. The narrative of these two happy travelogue lives is naïve and disarming : the outermost fringe of savagery was never penetrated. Adventure was domesticated—and photo-- graphed. " Lion in a familiar pose " is one caption.