THE HOME FROM HOME 73

store. There is no evidence of Dr. D/s intention, but
it seems obvious that he had no wish to return to
Europe and that he preferred to die in Africa. It
is the only satisfactory explanation of his recklessness.
For he went up from Monrovia through Bassa
country to Sanoquelleh, ten days' trek, without a
hammock, without provisions, without even a bed or
a mosquito net; he can hardly have travelled lighter
when his body was brought down from Ganta for
burial in the Lutheran Mission at Miihlenburg. He
slept on native beds, ate the native food, and died of
dysentery.

There are limits, then, to travelling light. A
District Commissioner in Sierra Leone seldom travels
with less than twenty-five carriers for himself alone,
and for much shorter treks than ours proved to be,
while at one time, after we had lost two men from
sickness, we were travelling with twenty-three. At
Biedu, with a four-man hammock for my cousin, I
had to take twenty-five carriers. A journey of about
twenty miles therefore cost a little more than thirty
shillings. Travel in Africa, if carriers have to be hired
by the day, is expensive. This was the experience in
the Republic of Sir Alfred Sharpe, whose route I
followed at the start. He was forced to take carriers
from village to village, sometimes paying two sets of
carriers in twenty-four hours at the fixed rate of a
shilling a day. At most villages there would be delay
in finding new carriers; all the men might be working
on the farms; and often it was impossible to travel
more than eight miles in a day. I learned from his
experience and waited at Bolahun a week until I had
engaged carriers willing to come with us all the way.