JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

An old man without any teeth suddenly said, "Do
you know in Monrovia they have a map of the whole
of Liberia? I am going to go and see it. It is in the
possession of a family called Anderson. They have
had it for years. Everyone who goes to Monrovia
goes to see the map. Sinoe is marked on it, and Grand
Bassa and Cape Palmas." Then a lot of people tried
to trap me into saying whether I was financing Mr.
Cooper or Mr. King. I might have made history that
day, for I am sure if I had said I was financing Mr.
Cooper, no one would have voted for Mr. King. And
all the while behind the frieze of black heads, five
hundred yards away, the yellow African beach slid
unchangingly by without a sign of human occupa-
tion. Somebody was fishing from the end of the boat
and with tiresome regularity catching a large fish.
It might have been the same fish, just as it might
have been the same patch of sand, but every time the
captain left the wheel, trod over the sprawl of limbs
into the bow and presently announced in a loud com-
manding voice, as if he were ordering somebody to
be clamped into irons, "A fish!" and entered the fact
in a log-book. There would be a momentary break
in the babble until a voice began again, "Mishter
Cooper ish ish a young man." "Ex—Presh—Pres—
Presh, Mishter King has exshper, experish . . ."

The Nonconformist minister hadn't drunk any-
thing. He woke up suddenly and without removing
his head from my shoulder said, "We shall never go
straight in Liberia until we let God into our conven-
tions. We must let God choose."

I said, "I agree, of course, but how will you know
wfeich candidate God wants to choose?"