2l6 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

lieved to be a holy hill. Tiny fairy people, the chief
said, had lived on this hill and they used to come
down and help the Manos in war. Harley was
interested; it was the first he had heard of any pygmy
traditions in Liberia. There might be remains ... I
think he was picturing to himself reports, excava-
tions, wall paintings, and the only kind of glory his
altruistic spirit could appreciate. There was a big
hole, the chief said, pointing up a path which disť
appeared a few feet away into the trees and under-
brush, where the small people used to live. Boys used
to go once a year with gifts in.to the hole. The last
boy who had gone to the hole was still alive, an old
man, in ZugbeL He had had his head shaved, but
when he came out his hair was dressed in ringlets.
Now no one went into the hole any more, but gifts
were still brought.

We reached Zugbei, a tiny village, in the fiercest
heat of the day: a worse heat than we had had in
the highlands; the air wa,s already saturated with the
coming rains. The villages were no longer perched
on thimbles of rock above the forest. One came
straight into them from the bush; they were like little
dried-up airless pools.

The chief led us to the waterfall. None of us
expected to see more than a thin trickle of water over
a few boulders, for some of the large rivers were so
low that the carriers could wade through them and
the dug-out canoes lay on the banks cracking for want
of use* We walked straight into the thickest wall of
forest. The chief and another man led, clearing a
path with cutlasses. It was impossible to tell how
they knew the way. They walked along fallen trees,