THE HOME FROM HOME 47

read on Sierra Leone mentioned a number of pros-
pectors who had crossed the border into what was
supposed to be an uninhabited part of the forest
looking for gold and had never returned; but that
was a little lower down (the Republic was on the bulge
of Africa's coast-line, and I could never properly
remember the points of the compass).

Mr. D. discouraged me. It wasn't possible, he said,
that way. It was evident that he was particularly
anxious for me to travel down by Bellivela. Bellivela
was the headquarters of the Frontier Force and was
being used as a concentration camp for political
prisoners, those who had given evidence before the
League of Nations Commission of Inquiry into
slavery in the Republic. "They'll have to invite you
inside the camp for the night/' Mr. D. said, "and then
you can poke around and see things."

That night I dreamed of Mr. D. and the Customs
at the border, a muddled irritating dream. I was
always forgetting something; I had arrived at the
Customs with all my bags and boxes and Mr. D. tied
up in a bale, but I'd forgotten to get any carriers and
I had no boys. I was afraid all the time that the
Customs inspector would discover Mr. D., that I
would be fined for smuggling, and have to pay a
heavy duty.

The Three Companions

I arrived in Freetown on a Saturday and the train
for Pendembu left on the following Wednesday; I had
hoped to find servants engaged for me when I arrived,
but Jimmie Daker, to whom I had an introduction,