234 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

there swaying in front of us between two tipsy torch-
bearers, while Vande whispered in my ear, "Chief
good man. Chief very good man," and his men
brought up between the pointed huts, under the light
of the flaming splinters, bowl after bowl of food. The
carriers had never seen such a feast. Its stink reeked
in the hot flyey night, the stink of fourteen bowls of
chop and three bowls of meat scraps.

Later I was a little drunk myself, not this time for
fear of rats but from mere good fellowship. I
remember wandering round the village listening to
the laughter and the music among the little glowing
fires and thinking that, after all, the whole journey
was1 worth while: it did reawaken a kind of hope in
human nature. If one could get back to this bareness,
simplicity, instinctive friendliness, feeling rather than
thought, and start again . . .

I was more spellbound, I suppose, than Vande, who
clutched my sleeve in the shadow of a hut and begged
me to take the half-crown I had given him that morn-
ing into safe keeping: he was afraid to carry such
wealth about him among this low bush tribe. He
took a green leaf out of his pocket and unwrapped
it: inside the leaf was a match-box: inside the match-
box another leaf, and inside that the silver coin.
Then he went back to his palm wine and later I
encountered him again wandering in blissful
drunkenness, hand in hand with the headman of the
village, who had reserved for him a special bowl.