"CIVILISED MAN" 223

laughter and running feet They were crazy with
pleasure in the small moon-filled clearing. One could
only envy them: we, the civilised, had lost touch
with the real lunar influence. It meant to us self-
conscious emotion, crooners and little sentimental
songs of lust and separation; at best a cerebral
worked-up excitement. It couldn't mean this physical
outburst, this unthinking tidal urge to joy. Mark said
to me on the next day's march, "Last night we were
so happy/' Next night to our eyes the moon would
be just as full, they had no calendars to tell them
that the moon was on the wane, they didn't need
calendars. Night after night they had felt the
tightening of the influence that binds us to the cold
empty craters; now they felt it loosen. Every month
the world turned back into its empty sky.

Steve Dunbar

A young man in a Boy Scout's hat and native robe
ame to meet us next day in the wide clean streets
f Sakripie, where there were stores and Mandingo
•aders in turbans and soldiers of the Frontier Force:
Paramount Chiefs town.

The Paramount Chief was away, but this was his

n who came and led us to a guest-house in the

lief s compound, a huge square with a flag-pole

trounded by whitewashed huts belonging to his

ves. He had the ingratiating air of a motor sales-

in, but he was harassed all the time because he had

authority; he was a joke, no one troubled to obey

n. He had a faint hope, I think, as he sat with me

the verandah of the guest-house that our coining

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