JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

'buccaneer', but that was perhaps pardonable
exaggeration. He was obviously a man of great
ability; his disarming of the tribes testified to it, and
that he had courage as well as brag the whole Kru
story showed. I had not only his own word for it:
the fact emerged even from the unfriendly report of
the British Consul. He had come down into Chief
Nimley's district as the President's special agent,
under a guard of soldiers, to collect long overdue
taxes. He knew well the man he had to deal with
and he knew the risk he was running when he agreed
to meet him at a palaver in the village. It had been
agreed that neither should bring armed men, but
when Davis arrived at the palaver-house with his
clerk he found Nimley and his leading men sitting
there fully armed. Even then, Davis thought, all
would have gone well had not the Commander of the
Frontier Force, Major Grant, who had taken a stroll
round the village, rushed into the hut, interrupted
the palaver, and cried out that Nimley had armed
men concealed in the banana plantations. Davis com-
manded him to stay where he was, but Grant, crying
out -that he was responsible to the President for
Davis's safety, ran from the hut to summon his
soldiers.

Davis's later opinion was that Grant was in the pay
of the Krus, for his action had the immediate effect
of endangering Davis's life. Nimley left the hut and
his warriors swarmed round the Colonel. Naturally
he made the most of the situation to me, as he leant
there over the Tapee verandah with one eye on ti&St
drinks. ("I said to my clerk, Take the papers. Thef
vftm't harm you. Walk slowly up to the camp