170 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

It was not that I believed in the devil's power so much
as in the power of my own mind. The suggestion of
malice and evil here was so great that I could imagine
it influencing my mind until I half believed, and a
half-belief can be strong enough to affect the health.

So in a way I was just as glad to leave Zigita as the
carriers were. They broke into song as soon as they
got beyond its boundaries, and made fast time on
the wide treeless track south to Zorzor. We couldn't
see twenty yards ahead at first because of the deep wet
fog which dropped softly round us, but when the sun
had sucked it up, we experienced the real ferocity of
Africa on the shadeless road. It staggered and sick-
ened me even through a sun-helmet. Once a beautiful
little green snake moved across the path, upright,,
without hurry, bearing her bust proudly forward into
the grasses like a hostess painted by Sargent, poison-
ous with gentility, a Faberge jewel.

At lunch in the only shade the wide gorge provided
the messenger arrived from Zorzor with a note to tell
me that I could have a house in the compound of the
Lutheran mission.

Kindness in a Corner

I had expected something better of a mission than
this parched playground on a hill-top opposite Zor-
zor: the deserted houses, nobody about, the dusty
plants, and at last the fat American woman trailing
forward through the afternoon heat in a green-
flowered dress, the pattern tightly expanded across
the hips, a white topee. She whined at us dismally
jhat this was the house: the dusty rambling shut-