128 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

the villages with the women pounding rice, the
cluster of stones where the chiefs were buried, the
cows rubbing their horns along the huts; the taste of
warm, boiled and filtered water in the dried mouth;
the sense, above all, that one was getting somewhere,
that one was going deeper. It made me walk fast,
faster than my carriers and my companion. A
march, this first week, was a dash; my hammock-
men, as I didn't use my hammock, kept my pace,
and an evasive half-relationship developed from
shared oranges, the rests at the water-courses, where
they drank out of the empty meat tins they carefully
preserved and I from my bottle. . . .

Babu was one of these men, the Buzie: he played
the harp tentatively when we rested; he couldn't
speak a word of English, but he had amused friendly
reliable ways of showing that he was on your side
in the arguments which soon came thick and fast.
He was one of the few carriers who smoked a pipe, a
small clay pipe, and one could imagine him a season-
ticket-holder, the reliable support of his mother and
sisters in a remote sad suburb. For there was an
undertone of sadness which grew as .the trek went
on; he wasn't strong enough for the work; he didn't
complain, he was completely reliable until he was
simply too sick to go farther. He was at first the only
Buzie man with us; he didn't mix easily but sat apart
with his pipe, sometimes coming up to the door of
my hut to smile his good wishes and go away again.

The other man on the first day who went ahead
with me was Alfred. Alfred was another type
altogether, in his cloth cap and shorts. He had learnt
to read and write, he knew English; he thought he