, -I f « t.

/ ^

WESTERN LIBERIA / ^ IQJ

erotic infinite appeal of projecting buttocks and
moving belly; she at least didn't know it was,:,the
blacksmith of Mosambolahun as she dancecT'likieu .
Europa before the bull, and the old black wooden
muzzle rested on the earth and the eyes of the
blacksmith watched her through the flat painted
rims.

Music at Night

That night Gissi, a Buzie man, came up to play the
harp. A row of black heads lined the verandah, while
he sat with dangling legs picking out of the palm
fibres light melancholy monotonous music, beauti-
fully superficial music which just tickled the surface
of the mind, didn't tiresomely claim any deep
emotion whether of grief or exaltation, the daim
which fixes strained masks on the faces in a concert
hall. This was the music of a cigarette-box; it was
sad, but it didn't really care, everything would always
be the same. The little recurring notes plucked with
four nails died out and began again unvaried against
the night, the black faces, the hurricane lamp and
the moths that drove by in swarms to shrivel their
wings against it. Mark shovelled them from the table
in handfuls, and Gissi didn't watch his harp or his
fingers or his friends; he looked away smiling gently
at the hopping wingless moths. He was not a
handsome man, he was beautiful as a woman can be
beautiful, without effeminacy. His round skull and
tiny ears, projecting lower lip and long curling eye-
lashes had nothing in common with the buck negro
type, who represents Africa to the European,