As I leaned my elbows onto the railing at the ship's stern, I stared at the Dark Continent sinking into the froth of a stormy Mediterranean. I could feel all those dark eyes of Africa still burning into my mind, especially those of a grim-faced soldier I'd passed on the way to the docks. Standing guard before a large warehouse marked GRAIN STORAGE, he had had such intensity in his eyes. The firm grip on his automatic rifle had left no doubt danger was very much a part of his life. Lurking throughout all the confusion of ugliness and hospitality that is Africa will always be the beasts of deperation and frustration, waiting to spring at those foolish enough to show their fears.

Such a paradise North Africa could be, if only another race of beings--ones who didn't know war, or jealousy, or religion--had settled there. So blessed by nature was it, with its eternal sun and fertile soil, that that part of the world should have been the perfect bride for any man's or woman's imagination. It should not be this generation's latest Hell. What a crime, indeed, that I experienced amongst those scenic treasures such dark episodes as former French colonists' cemeteries desecrated beyond repair and an ex-freedom fighter still, 20 years later, wearing the torture marks given to him by his French captors.

Nature, too, had shown me plenty of boogeymen. In a setting as rugged as Africa's, it was not uncommon for me to have my heart tested unexpectedly. Take, for instance, the wild dog attack in Morocco that I earlier wrote of, or the monkeys that beaned me on the head with rocks as I walked along the sea cliffs, or the time I was sleeping on the dirt floor of a shack with 13 others and a huge spider on my face awakened me. There I was, merrily dreaming of a fair maiden kissing my mustache, only to discover that a spider as large as a trantula was pawing at what it must have thought was a caterpillar between my nostrils and lips! I didn't stop jumping and hollering for two minutes.

However, as big and fanged and ornery as that spider may have been, it would have had to pack on quite a few more pounds to match the bulk of the 13 wild pigs that chased me through the snows of an Algerian mountain pass many nights ago. As long as my own legs are, it was all I could do to stay just out of reach of their teeth and tusks and make it to the nearest tree limbs. In a country where the Muslim religion prohibits the eating or touching of pork, those oversized swine evidentally had forgotten that there are some humans who would just as soon kill and eat them as be chased into trees.

Fortunately pigs are not particularly well-mannered, and in no time they became too occupied with arguing amongst themselves as to who would get to chomp on me, should I fall from the tree limbs. After sunrise, it must have occurred to them that perhaps the service might be better somewhere else, and they would waddle off in a mass of black bristles and grumpy grunts. From my perch in the tree I wearily watched them disappear into the forest, to wherever it is that boogeymen go to wait until nightfall returns.

I smiled, as I remembered dropping from the tree's limbs. The stiffness in my joints was painful enough to qualify me for old age benefits. But at least I was alive and in one piece...which, as usual, was all the encouragement I needed to shuffle on to the next adventure.

Now, the next adventure is to be the Italian island of Sicily. There I will be far away from the dangers of Africa... though not necessarily from its spell.

Steven