THE HOME FROM HOME 71

take the British West African coinage stamped with
a palm tree. But this trouble was for the future; I
was concerned only at the moment with time, with
the need to get to Bolahun before dark. It was an
unpractised traveller's anxiety; it led to unnecessary
strain and my carriers' mistrust. Later I got used to
not caring a damn, just to walking and staying put
when I had walked far enough, at some village of
which I didn't know the name, to letting myself drift
with Africa.

To the Frontier

At Biedu the chief was waiting in the village with
the carriers and an interpreter. I knocked the price
down from one and sixpence a man to one and three-
pence, conscious of the faint cynical amusement of
the German, who never paid more than sixpence. The
loads were spread out down the centre of the village
and for the first time I could see the full extent of
the luggage we had brought with us: the six boxes
of food, the two beds and chairs and mosquito nets,
three suitcases, a tent we were never to use, two boxes
of miscellaneous things, a bath, a bundle of blankets,
a folding table, a money-box, a hammock; I couldn't
help being a little shamed by my servants, who each
brought with them a small flat suitcase.

Later I tried to calculate how lightly a man could
travel with safety for any length of time in the West
African bush. I had spent more than fifty pounds
on equipment and my invoices read like the list of
goods supplied to an Everest expedition, but I do not
think I could have cut down the loads by more than