THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

We had bidden good-by to the pleasure of drinking well, eating well, breathing freely, and, above all, of having dry pores.  As for me, I was wondering how to substitute a bath towel for my handkerchief.  You would have thought sky and sea had been covered with isinglass. Nature was congested.  This was Africa, the true, accursed, Africa; black Africa.

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Six days had passed.  The black trip was beginning.  It was to be Senegal, Guinea, the Soudan, the Haute-Volta, the Ivory Coast, Togoland, Dahomey, the Gabon and the Congo.  After Dakar, Timbuctoo!  Before me were the jungle, the forest, the wood cutters, the gold miners, the rail layers.  In a word – the black empire of the Republic. An unknown land inhabited by people dressed all in white or dressed in nothing.

Londes/Naked, 1929