Graham Greene records his travels on foot through 350 miles of roadless and disease-infested forest in the West African black republic of Liberia, which he entered from the British protectorate of Sierra Leone, in many parts no white man had been seen within living memory, no proper maps were available, and he had to find his way from village to village relying on local (often inaccurate) information, until he hit the coast and the odd, seedy civilization of the descendants of American slaves.