lyu	JOUKNEY WITHOUT MAPS
like one prolonged flickering illumination. The
carriers slept on the floor of the verandah. The sound
of their breathing and snores was very companion-
able in the pounding electric night, and they kept
away the rats. But the storm worried me. The dry
season was supposed to last another month, but some-
times the rains came early. It would never do to be
caught in the interior, for on the lower level below
Ganta the ways in the wet season were impassable;
Central Liberia between the villages became a swamp,
and we had not yet even turned towards the south.
Cafe Bar
Suddenly in the inconsequent manner of Africa
Ganta came dose and we left French Guinea behind
us. On the last day the colony proved more fhqn
ever French. Djiecke took us by surprise after only
two hours' march, a neat native school behind a gate-
way, Ecole de Djiecke, in a tidied park-like plain.
A small fussy black in a topee and European
clothes and pince-nez came to meet our train from
the school compound. He was very conceited, very
inquisitive and we couldn't understand each other's
French, When he learned that we were English he
became deeply suspicious. He wanted to know where
we had come from and when I said Sierra Leone he
was convinced that I was lying. I think his geography
was vague, for he couldn't understand that we could
have come from Sierra Leone by land. He wanted
to know what canton we had just left, but I didn't
even know what a canton was. I thought it had some-
tiling to do with Switzerland.