176 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

man was a cheerful rogue with his pipe and his cloth
cap and his rattle; but it sometimes seemed to me
that he let the carriers have their own way too often.
I trusted Amah, because Amah was unpopular with
the other men; I trusted Babu, the Buzie, and his
friend Guawa; I thought I could trust my hammock-
man, Kolieva, who went ahead with me on each day's
march.

But it was Kolieva who led me effectually astray
the first day in France. We took the wrong path from
the first: the carriers had evidently talked in Zorzor
with the inhabitants and decided that the way to
Bamakama by Jbaiay was too long and rough. No
one ever knew the name of the town we reached about
two hours later, across the upper reach of the St.
Paul. It sounded like Koinya. It was distinguished
from the Liberian villages by a kind of town-
planning. The huts of the chief and his wives were
enclosed by a high wall in the centre, round which
the town circled. The whole place was rather like an
encampment of traders on the road.

When Amah arrived he interpreted what the chief
had to say: that Bamakama was a full day's trek
away and that he was uncertain whether the paths
between had been cleared or the bridges opened after
the last rains. He was a man of great dignity, a little
below the average Mandingo height with a black
beard and a scarlet fez and a country robe and that
Semitic expression in the dark eyes above the hooked
nose of being open to the commercial chance. The
men in the village had their hair curiously cut into
patterns and tufts: I had seen nothing of the kind in
Liberia. Their heads were often completely shaved