POSTSCRIPT IN MONROVIA 313

young to have learnt what the dark may conceal in
the way of lust and murder, crying for no intelligible
reason but because it still possessed the ancestral fear,
the devil was dancing in its sleep. There, I thought,
standing in the cold empty Customs shed with a
couple of suitcases, a few pieces of silver jewellery, a
piece of script found in a Bassa hut, an old sword or
two, the only loot I had brought with me, was as far
back as one needed to go, was Africa: the innocence,
the virginity, the graves not opened yet for gold, the
mine not broken with sledges. vA'"7£: ,;;