igO         JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS
seven hours on end. I remember for what a long time
I was able to think of fruit salts, for far longer and
with more longing than I thought of beer or iced
drinks. I suppose my digestion was suffering from the
tinned foods, rough rice, the dry tough African
chickens, and about five eggs a day. For the only way
to economise our tinned supplies, which threatened
to run short, was to eat off the country, rice, eggs and
chicken, for meal after meal.
If the forest had been full of dangerous life, the
day's marches would have been more supportable. A
few monkeys, a snake or two, the sound of heavy
birds creaking invisibly overhead, and ants, anjs
everywhere, this was all the life in the dead forest
The word 'forest' to me had always conveyed a sense
of wildness and beauty, of an active natural force, but
this forest was simply a green wilderness, and not
even so very green. We passed on twelve-inch paths
through an endless back garden of tangled weeds;
they didn't seem to be growing round us so much as
dying; there was no view, no change of scene, nothing
to distract the eyes, and even if there had been, we
couldn't have enjoyed the sight, for the eyes had to
be kept on the ground all the way, to avoid the roots
and boulders. It was a relief, a distraction, when a
stream broke the path. A carrier would horse one
across, for it was dangerous to wet the feet in the
tiniest shallow stream because of guinea-worm which
the Mandingo traders had brought down from the
Sahara. The smell of the carriers had long ceased to
be noticeable: I suppose our own smell by that time
was bad enough, for fear of the same worm prevented
jhs bathing as the carriers did in the rivers. The