Ij8 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

none of these diseases could be transmitted by fleas
in a rat's fur. One felt that even the dust in the
cramped dirty town was poisonous, no less than fleas.
And yet all the time, below the fear and the irrita-
tion, one was aware of a curious lightness and
freedom; one might drink, that was a temporary
weakening; but one was happy all the same; one had
crossed the boundary into country really strange;
surely one had gone deep this time.

Buzie Country

If we seldom sank as low as Duogobmai we seldom

rose as high as Nicoboozu, which we reached next

day after an easy cheerful trek of only three hours.

Alfred had gone home; he had decided that the

journey was not going to be a holiday; and in his

place Vande had taken a friend of Babu's, a Buzie

man called Guawa. Guawa was an asset; he had the

carriers singing before Duogobmai had slipped

behind the trees. He sang and he danced, danced

even when he carried a hammock or a load; I could

hear his voice down the trail, proposing the line of

an impromptu song which the carriers took up,

repeated, carried on. These songs referred to their

employers; their moods and their manners were held

up to ridicule; a village when'the carriers pressed

through in full song would learn the: whole story

of their journey. Sometimes a villager would join

in the chant, asking a question, and I could hear the

question tossed along the line until it became part

of the unending song and was answered.

At the village before Nicoboozu the fourth