46 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

duction to Paramount Chief Nimley of the Sasstown
Tribe of Krus, the leader of the rebellion on the coast
in 1932, It was in the fight against Nimley that the
Frontier Force under the command of Colonel
Elwood Davis, the President's special agent, a North
American black, had, according to the British Con-
sul's report, killed women and children, destroyed
villages, tortured prisoners. Peace had been patched
up but not with Nimley, who with the remains of his
tribe was hidden in the bush vainly hoping for white
intervention. No white man, Mr. D. said, would be
allowed to travel to the Kru coast, but it would be
possible by booking a passage on a coasting steamer
from Monrovia to Cape Palmas to change one's mind
on board and land unexpectedly at Sinoe. From Sinoe
one would travel along the beach to Nana Kru, and
from there it would be necessary to get guides who
knew the way to Nimley's hiding-place.

I only mention these plans which came to nothing,
these routes which were not followed, because they
may give some idea of the vagueness of my ideas
when I landed at Freetown. I had never been out of
Europe before; I was a complete amateur at travel in
Africa. I intended to walk across the Republic, but I
had no idea of what route to follow or the conditions
we would meet. Looking at the unreliable map I had
thought vaguely that we would go up to the Sierra
Leone railway terminus at Pendembu, then go across
the frontier the nearest way and strike diagonally
down to the capital. There seemed to be a lot of
rivers to cross, but I supposed there would be bridges
of some kind; there was the forest, of course, but that
was everywhere. One apparently reliable book I had