94 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

allowed to own land in the Republic, the missions are
at the mercy of the Government, and nine miles away
at Koiahun lived Mr. Reeves, the District Commis-
sioner. Mr. Reeves was a Vai, a Mohammedan; he
belonged, psychologically, to the early nineteenth
century, to the days of the slave trade He hated
Christians, he hated white men, especially he hated
the English language. With his seal-grey skin, dark
expressionless eyes, full deep red lips, dressed in a
fez and a robe of native cloth, he gave an effect, more
Oriental than African, of cruelty and sensuality; he
was gross, impassive and corrupt. His wife was a Miss
Barclay, a member of the President's household, and
it was said among the natives that when he was
appointed the President promised him that he would
be a District Commissioner for ever. He was sent first
to Sanoquelleh at the other end of the country and
an unpleasant story had followed him to Kolahun, a
story of somfc Mandingo traders whom he was said
to have caught smuggling goods over the border from
French territory, and to have shut in a hut and
burned to death. It was impossible in the Republic
to investigate a tale like that, but there were other
stories of cruelty and despotism for which I found
plenty of evidence: stories of his house built by
forced labour and paid for by the seizure of the
natives' produce; stories of how 'his messengers
flogged the men working on the road, how no man
from Christianised Bolahun dared show his face in
the town. The nuns one day had seen him pass
hurriedly by in a hammock, his messengers whipping
the carriers on. So many stories leaked down to Mon-
rovia that even a Government separated by ten days*