J2 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

there drinking gin and tonic and crying with empty
chairs on either side; the barman kept on serving
drinks at the other end. I thought for some reason
even then of Africa, not a particular place, but a
shape, a strangeness, a wanting to know. The un-
conscious mind is often sentimental; I have written
'a shape', and the shape, of course, is roughly that
of the human heart.

CHAPTER THREE

THE HOME FROM HOME
Freetown

FREETOWN, the capital of Sierra Leone, at first was
just an impression of heat and damp; the mist
streamed along the lower streets and lay over the
roofs like smoke. Nature, conventionally grand,
rising in tree-covered hills above the sea and the
town, a dull uninteresting green, was powerless to
carry off the shabby town. One could see the
Anglican cathedral, laterite bricks and tin with a
square tower, a Norman church built in the nine-
teenth century, sticking up out of the early morning
fog. There was no doubt at all that one was back
in home waters. Among the swarm of Kru boats
round the ship the Princess Marina with its freshly
painted name was prominent. "Princess Marina," the
half-naked owner kept on calling. "Sweetest boat on
the coast/'

Tin roofs and peeling posters and broken windows
in the public library and wooden stores, Freetown