HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT 151

and it was bearable because it was inescapable. Only
one thing worried me a little: it seemed likely after
a night without nets we should both go down with
fever when we were farthest from both Bolahun and
Monrovia, though luckily our quinine was on the
right side of the Loffa.

There was no water to drink because there was no
filter, and it was appallingly hot, lying covered by
blankets over our clothes. My cousin was wise and
bore the thirst, but in this village there was so much
chance of disease that one wasn't adding to it much,
I thought, by drinking two dirty gourds of palm wine.
Then I had to fall back on neat whisky. The hut was
too short for the hammocks to be stretched at full
length; w^had to sit in the dark bolt upright waiting
for the rats to come. There was a bat somewhere in
the roof, and I had noticed before the lamp went out
a few huge cockroaches flattened against the wall.

And then luck changed. It was as if fate had been
merely curious to see how the worst would affect us.
Suddenly the carriers arrived with Vande grinning
and happy and proud in the rear. Somehow he had
persuaded them to cross the river in this pitch dark-
ness, and there they were with the beds and nets and
food and filter, sinking to the ground by the hut too
tired to grumble. So after all one was protected,
protected from the flies which stayed awake all night,
from the mosquitoes, the cockroaches and the rats,
by one's net. But it wasn't easy to sleep. Outside, the
carriers sat round the lamps and had their chop and
I heard vitality come slowly back to them and
Alfred's voice sowing dissension. When their lamp
went out the rats came. They came all together,