ABSTRACT
AN upland landscape in Bamenda has something of the intimacy and enchantment of parts of the English countryside: hills rise to skies soft and luminous with white cloud in April and May; the young grass is a vivid green after the rains of March; while here and there on the slopes, a darker note is struck where a small grove of kola trees marks the site of a long abandoned compound. Along the valleys there are lush plots of cocoyam, maize and sugar cane which thrive in black alluvial earth; while on the hill sides the soil has oxidized after burning and turned to vermilion, brick-red or tawny orange. The small raised beds give a quilted appearance to the fields, which are separated from one another by deep trenches or slender lines of acacia and other saplings. The colours have a simplicity and clarity of tone that is not often seen in the Tropics.
