54 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

thatch. The bush was as ragged and uninteresting
as a back garden which has been allowed to run wild
and in which the aspidistras from the parlour have
seeded and flourished among the brown-scorched
grasses and the tall wrinkled greenery.

All the way along the line the price of oranges
went down, from six a penny at Freetown to fifteen
a penny the other side of Bo. The train stopped at
every station, and the women pressed up along the
line, their great black nipples like the centre point of
a target. I was not yet tired of the sight of naked
bodies (later I began to feel as if I had lived for years
with nothing but cows), or else these women were
prettier and more finely-built than most of those I saw
in the Republic. It was curious how quickly one aban-
doned the white standard. These long breasts falling
in flat bronze folds soon seemed more beautiful than
the small rounded immature European breasts. The
children took their milk standing; they ran to the
breast in pairs like lambs, pulling at the teats. But
though the region of modesty had shrunk, it was still
there. The train crossed the Mano river; far down
below the bridge, a hundred yards away, natives were
bathing; they covered their private parts with their
hands as the train went by.

The railway journey began before eight and
finished some time after five; the first stage of the
journey ended at Bo; here the train and passengers
stayed the night. At some point during the day one
had emerged from the Colony into the Protectorate.
The change was more than a matter of geography
or administration, it was a change of manner. The
Englishmen here didn't talk about the *bloody blacks'