THE I<AST LAP 277

journey had begun and ended in a lorry in the stink
of petrol.

Civilisation, of course, even at the Grand Bassa
level, offered a little more than that; it offered iced
beer in the home of the P.Z, manager over the store
which was just closing down from want of trade, fresh
Liberian beef of unbelievable toughness, a straggling
row of wooden houses ending on the clean wide beach
with the surf breaking beyond, for the surf had saved
Grand Bassa, like all other Liberian trading stations,
from quays and docks; it offered a selection of hideous
churches, one of which woke me early next morning
with the sound of what must have been a gramo-
phone record, repeating over and over again, "Come
to church. Come to church. Come to church."

It offered, too, a wooden police station with a little
group of uniformed figures avidly watching my
carriers collect in the courtyard of the store to be paid
off. In a way I was gkd to see the last of them, but
as I listened to the manager warning them to be gone
as quickly as possible from Grand Bassa, for the
police would be after their money, I felt sorry for
the end of something which was unlikely ever to
happen again. One was never likely to live for long
in a company so simple and uncorrupted; they had
none of them before seen so many stores, the sea, a
motor-lorry; their eyes were full of excitement and
wonder at Grand Bassa, and they didn't even know
the way back. Nobody here could tell them, and
when Vande suggested that they might make their
way along the beach to Monrovia and there get in
touch again with the Holy Cross Mission, the
manager warned them that none of his own