188 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

blister a pin would burst, to the beat of the rattle,
and then howled and wept to be released.

I lay in bed while the music went on and held
Burton against the mosquito-net to let the lamplight
shine feebly through on the page of cheap print. The
cover was already going damp, as if the book had
been left out in the dew, The word nigra caught my
eye, as I listened to the feet stamping and the calls I
couldn't understand. I suddenly felt, reading the
lines of Calpurnius Graecus, the irresistible tug of the
familiar, a longing for flowers and dew and scent It
was hard to believe they existed in the same world
and that there were emotions of tenderness and regret
that couldn't be expressed with a harp, a drum and a
rattle, buttocks and black teats.

Te sine, vae misero mihi, lilia nigra videntur,
Pallentesque rosae, nee dulce rubens hyacinthus,
Nullos nee myrtus nee laurus spiral odores.

I put the light out and listened to the moonlit
tumult, but when it ceased and the villagers crept
into their huts and put up the doors, there was such
a rush of rats down the walls that I switched on my
torch and saw the shadows racing down. But I had
left my door open and they didn't stay. I had the
night to myself.

The Dead Forest

The next day was the eleventh of the trek, and we
turned back into the great forest with very little idea
gŁ where we should spend the next night, except that