I was returning to Kumasi from Akomadan, on the Kumasi Wenchi road, after inspecting my polling stations. This was the day before the Elections. The road which I was travelling was described by the Assistant Government Agent as ‘P.W.D. maintained road’. You have to travel on it to appreciate this dry brand of official humour, but stripped of its jargon, it simply means that it was a jolly bad road but it might have been worse. It was a dusty narrow road, full of deep potholes which on a rainy day could easily be death-traps for the unwary.

It was on this road that I overtook two dusty herdsmen driving unwilling and emaciated cattle. The herdsmen, who looked wizened, were using their whips vigorously and liberally. As they spat, not once or twice, each displayed a set of teeth yellow with kola and neglect.234 The faraway look in their eyes told a story of fatigue and hunger, but these herdsmen showed not the slightest sign of succumbing to the ordeal: an ordeal which was in no way mitigated by the fierce blaze of the sun that beat mercilessly on them.

As I sounded my horn one of them signalled me to slow down, waving his whip excitedly. Then swish! swish! went the whip of the other herdsman, in a futile attempt to bring order and discipline among the brutes. I thought this display of brutality was uncalled for, because I was quite willing to stop while the cattle cleared from the middle of the road. But of course he knew his own cattle better.

When I drew nearer I observed the cows a little more closely. Their legs were thin but strong, their skins taut and shiny, and their eyes, glassy with the heat. In short they were ugly beasts. For a moment my sense of beauty got the better of me, and I thought that they deserved their whipping. There bodies were branded with broad marks, but whether they were tribal marks, like those of their masters, or whether they merely signified official pleasure and approval, I couldn't tell.