I hate rats, and rats are my abiding memory of this travel book written by Greene about his travels in Liberia in 1935.
He and his cousin set out to travel across most of the country accompanied by native bearers at a time when there were few maps of the country at all, and none of the interior.
The group travelled from village to village and this is where the rats come into the story. At night when lying in his hammock and the lamps were doused the "rats teemed " down the walls eating everything in sight. What the rats didn't eat the cockroaches did. Greene managed to sleep most nights only due to a vast consumption of whiskey, his supply of which must have taken several natives to carry.
This is a real travel book, not written by some TV personality flown into a location for the day and then out at night to his hotel.
Nothing seems to have changed in Africa either, the europeans exploited the natives, the natives exploited the other natives who exploited anything that was left.
A great travel book with some autobiographical insight from Greene concerning his life in Britain as well.
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