HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT	14!
the witch, but I wasn't prepared for a long or careful
examination.
So I wouldn't be delayed, and though the carriers
grumbled and Alfred whispered again into my ear,
"Too far. Better stay here. Too far," I insisted on
going on. Rather recklessly I pledged myself that it
wasn't far to Duogobmai. I nursed the idea that a
black always exaggerated, when the fact was they had
so hazy an idea of time that they were just as likely
to minimise. I said, "It's only about five hours from
here. I know. The white doctor at the Holy Cross
told me."
Only five hours, I thought, as the midday heat
came nearer, striking up from the dry ground, catch-
ing the feet as much as did the roots of trees, beating
down on one's helmet so that for moments at a time
it was cooler to raise it and take the full sun on the
skull. We were in the forest now, but it was still the
edge where it flattened out towards the Mandingo
plateau to the north: the dead dull edge of it which
didn't shelter sufficiently. A few birds moved over-
head, out of sight, their wings creaking like unoiled
doors. A monkey ran along a branch of a great grey
cotton tree, which was buttressed on the ground like
a tower. It flung itself into the air at the height of
a cathedral spire, dropped fifty feet and out of sight
behind the palms and ivy, the tangle of greenery.
The boy with the harps leapt aside at a slither in
the grass. That was all the life there was, except for
the long sullen chain of carriers, dropping farther and
farther behind. I wondered whether they would stay
the journey; if they left us I hadn't the money to
reach the Coast. Would I have the nerve, I wondered,