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private bits and burn them. I think I need something like this. There are all sorts of things I can’t say to Ted and I’ve got to say to someone. I’ll find somewhere to hide it. I know, with my thingy. Ted would never dream of poking around there—he’s terribly squeamish about that side of things.
    Ted laughed like billy-oh at my cartoon and got out a pencil and started to add things. He can’t really draw at all, just stick-men. He drew black ones on top of all the loads and another white man labelled ME with the bearers, carrying a much bigger load than anyone else with a big black man and a little white man sitting on top. The load was supposed to be office files but they didn’t look anything like. The men on top were labelled KB and de L. I guessed that meant Kama Boi and de Lancey. Kama Boi is the Emir. We’re going over to visit him on Monday. Mr de Lancey is the Resident at Birnin Soko about eighty miles away on the other side of the river, and he’s Ted’s boss. “Don’t you like Mr de Lancey?” I said, but Ted just laughed and lit the paper at the corner and watched it burn. I can’t imagine what Elongo thought of all this!
    Tired of writing now. Nothing to say. Still too hot to paint. I shall slop in a chair and listen to the gramophone and try and read Henry Esmond . (Qy: Why are good books so boring ?)
    Mon Dec 17
    Started off for Kiti soon as it was light (no breakfast till we got back, either. Hope I’m going to get used to these funny mealtimes, breakfast not till 9.30, lunch not till 2.30 so’s Ted can get all his office work over and have the rest of the day for other things). I rode Ted’s best pony, Salaki, almost pure Arab. He’s only just got his horses back after the tsetse season—he sends them up north with Mafote for that. He’s looking for one for me but he says it may take a bit of time to find the right one. In fact, I rather think he’s a bit strapped for cash at the mo ’cos of spending more than he meant on The Warren! He’s terribly proud of Salaki—talks about her as tho’ he was trying to make me jealous (he wouldn’t know how to, actually, dear man!) She’s beautifully easy to ride without being boring and makes me feel quite the horsewoman, but Ted had to wrestle along with Tan-Tan, a rough old roan with an iron jaw (you couldn’t call it a mouth, Ted says) and a pig of a temper.
    The track leads out through the trees and almost at once you’re in thick scrub. When I was coming up river it felt as tho’ we were paddling along through jungle most of the way, but really except in the south the trees are a bit like stage scenery, just a thin line along the river banks and emptiness behind them. Only here in Kiti, between the trees and the emptiness, there’s a belt of rather nasty scrub, a bit like elder but with little cactusy leaves and thorns. It’s terribly difficult to clear ’cos every bit of root grows, so nobody lives in it. The real Kitawa live out beyond, in the hinterland. The track wound through this stuff, usually only wide enough for one, but where possible Ted came up alongside and gave me a history lesson before I met the Emir. I’m going to write it down to get it clear in my head, ’cos it’s important I shouldn’t put my foot in it by saying the wrong thing.
    Kiti is at the bottom edge of Northern Nigeria, and in Northern Nigeria the Law and the Prophets and the Laws of Cricket is something called Indirect Rule. That’s how we British govern the natives. Thing is, when we got here first we didn’t find just a lot of jungly tribes, like down south, but a sort of tottery empire with its own laws and its own princes, called emirs, ruling the different bits. They were all Mohammedans, tho’ some of the people they ruled over weren’t. So we said “Right, you go on ruling, and we’ll just put in a District