Only when she had put on her dress and was arranging her hair in the mirror did his amazement subside. Before leaving the room, she said: "Thomas will bring you your coffee." Thomas was her Negro servant. Four days later he was murdered. In the Central's courtyard. By Adèle. WITH this story in the back of my mind, I stepped out of Libreville airport. "The Central," I told the taxi driver. He nodded brusquely, and we took off. What luck. The Central was still here; I'd be able to sleep in the very room where Timar became acquainted with the almost axiomatic sensuality of Equatorial Africa. And who knows, perhaps I would even be woken first thing by a plump, sandy-haired proprietress wearing nothing but a black silk dress. That's the way it goes with travellers, they build upon each other's experiences. After reading du Chaillu, Brazza journeyed to Gabon and picked up where his predecessor had left off, followed in turn by Mary Kingsley, a Victorian spinster who let herself be tickled by jungle spiders as big as a man's fist, and loved it. Jo Timar was a more prosaic traveller; he wasn't looking for the thrill of the unknown, he was looking for work.