grains while we sat around the open fire in the kitchen. You could never get at them because as soon as you entered the room with a lamp they flew into their two holes. We tried getting them with the little iron traps the blacksmiths made, on which you attached a bait---usually a small piece of dried fish. But after one or two of them got killed the rest learnt to avoid that fishy bait. It was then we decided to go hunting. I, or one of the others, would tiptoe in the dark and quietly plug the holes with pieces of rag while the rest waited outside with sticks. After a reasonable interval those outside would charge in with a lamp, slam the door and the massacre would begin. It worked very well. As a rule we did not kill the very small ones; we saved them up for the future.... Now all that seemed half a century away. When Chief Nanga came back to lunch just before two it was clear his mind was preoccupied with something or other. His greeting, though full of warmth as ever, was too brief. He went straight to the telephone and called some ministerial colleague. I soon gathered that it was the Minister of Public Construction. The conversation made little sense to me at the time especially as I heard only one end of it. But my host spoke with great feeling, almost annoyance, about a certain road which had to be tarred before the next elections. Then I heard the figure of two hundred and ten thousand pounds. But what really struck me was when my Minister said to his colleague: 'Look T. C. we agreed that this road should be tarred. What is this dillying and dallying...? Which expert? So you want to listen to expert now? You know very well T. C. that you cannot trust these our boys. That is why I always say that I prefer to deal with Europeans... What? Don't worry about the Press; I will make sure that they don't publish it....' When he finally put down the phone he said, 'Foolish man!' to it and then turned to me. 'That was Hon. T. C. Kobino. Very stupid man. The Cabinet has approved the completion of the road between Giligili and Anata since January but this foolish man has been dillying and dallying, because it is not in his constituency. If it was in his constituency he would not listen to experts. And who is the expert? One small boy from his town---whom we all helped to promote last year. Now the boy advises him that my road should not be tarred before next dry season because he wants to carry out tests in the soil. He has become an earthworm.' I laughed at this. 'Have you ever heard of such a thing? Is this the first road we are tarring in this country? You see why I say that our people are too selfish and too jealous....' I got to know a lot about this road which, incidentally, passes through my own village of Urua. At the time I was naturally sympathetic to Chief Nanga's plans for it, if not with his contempt for expert advice. But of course Chief Nanga said the fellow hadn't been appointed in the first place for his expertise at all. And so it went round and round. But none of these things was real news to me, only his saying that he had ordered ten luxury buses to ply the route as soon as it was tarred. Each would cost him six thousand pounds. So he had two good reasons for wanting the road tarred---next elections and the arrival of his buses. 'It doesn't mean I have sixty thousand pounds in the bank,' he hastened to add. 'I am getting them on never- never arrangement from the British Amalgamated.' I wasn't too sure of the meaning of never-never at that time and I suppose I had a vague idea that the buses were a free gift, which in the circumstances would not have been beyond the British Amalgamated. After a heavy lunch of pounded yam I was feeling very drowsy. As a rule I always slept in the afternoon but in Chief Nanga's house, where things tumbled over one another in a scramble to happen first, an afternoon snooze seemed most improper, if not shameful. And I thought if Chief Nanga could get home at two in the morning, be
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