34 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

or green flounces, the wide straw hats, dignified by
the native bearing, the lovely roll of the thighs, the
swing of the great shoulders. They were dressed for
a garden party and they carried off cheap bright
grandeur in the small back-yards among the vultures
as nature couldn't carry off Freetown.

The men were less assured; they had been educated
to understand how they had been swindled, how they
had been given the worst of two worlds, and they
had enough power to express themselves in a soured
officious way; they had died, in so far as they had
once been men, inside their European clothes. They
didn't complain, they hinted; they didn't fight fox
what they wanted, they sourly prevaricated. "From
what I garnered here and there," suggested the Creole
gossip-writer in the Sierra Leone Daily Mail, "it is
not the intention of the Governor and his wife to
make Governor's Lodge, Hill Station, the official
residence of the representative of His Majesty the
King; those who maintain the view that the environ-
ments at Hill Station may influence them to the
prejudice of the interest of the people are quite
mistaken. In fact, it is considered improbable to
entertain such an opinion, and I believe His
Excellency will burst into peals of laughter if he were
to hear such a thing. I leave it at that/'

That was the. nearest they could get to a Petition
of Right. They wore uniforms, occupied official
positions, went to parties at Government House, had
the vote, but they knew all the time they were funny
(oh, those peals of laughter!), funny to the heartless
prefect eye of the white man. If they had been slaves
they would have had more dignity; there is no shame