WESTERN LIBERIA	99
happened.   It seemed only one more meaningless
climax when the devil at last appeared.
The Liberian 'Devils'
I call him 'devil' because it is the word most com-
monly used among the whites and English-speaking
natives in the Republic. It is no more misleading, I
think, than the word 'priest' which is sometimes used
elsewhere. A masked devil like Landow (of what are
known as the Big Bush Devils I shall have something
to say lateri might roughly be described as a head-
master with rather more supernatural authority than
Arnold of Rugby ever claimed. Even in the Sierra
Leone Protectorate, where there are many missionary
schools, most natives, if they are not Mohammedan,
will attend a bush school, of which the masked devil
is the unknown head. Even the Christian natives
attend; Mark had attended, though the Christians
are usually favoured with a shortened course because
they cannot be fully trusted with the secrets of a
bush school. And the bush schools are very secret.
All the way through the great forest of the interior
one comes on signs of them; a row of curiously
cropped trees before a narrow path disappearing into
the thickest bush: a stockade of plaited palms: in-
dications that no stranger may penetrate there. No
natives, girls or boys, are considered mature till they
have passed through the bush schools, and the course
in the old days lasted as long in some tribes as seven
years, though now two years is the more usual period.
There are no holidays; the children are confined to
the bush; if a child dies his belongings are deposited