JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

ing heavily down the wall like water. All night they
gambolled among the boxes, and the cows snuffled
round the wall and made water noisily. A jigger
burrowing under one of my nails burned like a match
flame. By half-past five the village was awake again.

CHAPTER THREE

INTO BUZIE COUNTRY
The Horrible Village

I WASN'T surprised when the carriers struck work next
morning and demanded a day's rest. They .said Nico-
boozu was a full day's journey away. I sent for the
chief and Mark interpreted. The chief said Nico-
boozu was seven hours oil; he was lying or Mark
was lying. But I had stood out against die carriers
once before and had been proved wrong. Now they
didn't believe me: they believed I was driving them
hard on purpose, and so I granted their demand
promptly to try to win their confidence again. But it
took me more than one day to do that. They were like
children who have caught a grown-up lying to them.
It wasn't a place I would have chosen to rest in.
It was a really horrible village. The only thing to
do in it was to get drunk. I noted in my diary, "A
woman goes round scraping up the cow and goat
dung with her hands, children with skin disease,
whelping bitches and little puppies with curly tails
and bat ears nosing among the food Souri is cooking
/or us in the dust outside a hut, skinny chickens every-