1^4 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

They weren't, until we came near to the Coast and
'civilisation', interested in the sex of their visitors,
but only in their colour or their clothes. The naked-
ness, too, was monotonous; it brought home how
few people, and for how short a period of their lives,
one can see naked with any pleasure.

There was something shifty and mean about
Duogobmai, even apart from its dirt. It was the
only place, until I got into Bassa country where the
coastal civilisation had corrupted the natives, in
which I found nothing to admire. The chief was a
Mohammedan, but no sooner had I produced a bottle
of my whisky than he arrived with a present of palm
wine and some eggs, all of which were bad. I gave
him half a tumblerful of neat whisky and he tossed
it down as if it were lemonade, then rolled away
towards his hut. An agreeable and depraved old man
with thin white hair twisted into tiny pigtails
brought two eggs; he was the oldest man in
Duogobmai, the owner of the hut; and he explained
through Mark that he didn't want a dash. He sat
down close by, his reward was a ringside seat, and
watched the show: the white man writing, drinking,
coughing, wiping the sweat from his face. Presently
I gave him a swig of whisky; it went immediately to
his head. One moment his lip was on the glass, the
next he was swaying and giggling in senile tipsiness.
He tried to smoke a cigarette, but the smoke got in
his eyes. He was like a withered plant one has tried
to revive with spirit; it begins immediately to open
and flutter its petals, but a moment later the spirit
has run its course and it is more dead than ever. In
middle of lunch the chief arrived again to intro-