I assumed the first time round that what was necessary was to show a grant-giving body why proposed research was interesting | new | important. Nothing could be further from the truth. When an inexperienced ethnographer pushes this aspect of his research, a grant-giving committee begins, perhaps on the basis of sound experience, to wonder how the research is standard | normal | a continuation of previous work. By stressing the vast theoretical implications of my little bit of research for the continued existence of anthropology, I was putting myself in the position of a man extolling the quality of the roast beef to a party of vegetarians. Everything I did made matters worse. In due time I received a letter telling me that the committee were concerned about the completion of the basic ethnography of the area, the brute collecting of facts. I rewrote my application in moronic detail. This time the committee were worried about the fact that I would be doing research on an unknown group. I rewrote; this time, they let it go. I received my funding. First hurdle down.

The problem of permission to conduct research now became paramount, since time and money were leaking away. I had written to the relevant ministry in Cameroon about a year before and been promised an answer in due course. I wrote again and was requested to submit detailed descriptions of the project. I did so. I waited. Finally, when I had all but given up hope, I received permission to apply for a visa and proceed to Yaounde, the capital. I confess with some embarrassment to old Africa hands that I naïvely assumed this to be the end of my contacts with bureaucracy. I suppose that, at that stage, I pictured the administration as a group of informal "chaps" doing the small amount of administration necessary with good-natured common sense. In a country of seven million inhabitants, most of it would surely be done man-to-man in shirtsleeves as in the old British Empire days. The idiom would be one of solid understatement with everyone turning his hand to what needed to be done.

I might have learnt all sorts of lessons from the Cameroonian Embassy, but I did not. Instead I put all conclusions in abeyance, in best anthropological fashion, waiting until all the evidence was in. Having telephoned the Embassy to make sure they were open, I turned up with all relevant documents, feeling rather proud of my efficiency in having the two necessary passport photos. The Embassy was shut. Prolonged ringing raised a grudging voice that refused to speak anything but French and told me to come back tomorrow.

I returned the next day and managed to get as far as the hall. Here I was informed that the relevant gentleman was absent and it was not known when he would return. I received the impression that asking for a visa was a strange and unusual thing. One useful fact, however, was gleaned: I could not apply for a visa without a valid return air ticket. I went to the airline office.

Air Cameroon regarded all customers as a confounded nuisance. I did not realize at that time that this was the way all government monopolies are run in Cameroon and put it down to language difficulties. They were suspicious of cheques, cash was inconvenient. I ended up paying for my ticket in French travellers' cheques. What other people do I cannot imagine. (One sound rule for the beginner: always deal with exotic airlines through a British travel agent. They will take payment in normal forms of currency.) While there, I inquired about trains between Yaounde and N'gaoundere, my next stop up country. I was sternly informed that this was an airline office, not a railway office, but it so happened that there was an air-conditioned train between the two. The journey took about three hours.

Flushed with triumph and armed with my ticket, I returned to the Embassy. The gentleman was still not back but I would be permitted to fill in a form in triplicate. I did so and was surprised to note that the top copy which I had laboriously completed was thrown away. I waited about an hour. Nothing happened. Meanwhile various people were drifting in and out, mostly speaking French. It is perhaps necessary to point out that Cameroon was an old German colony taken over by the British and French during the First World War and subsequently given independence as a federal republic, later replaced by a unified republic. Although Cameroon is theoretically bilingual in French and English, it is a bold man who hopes to get far on English alone. Eventually, a huge African woman entered and I was the subject of a long conversation in a language unknown to me. I suspect now that it was English. If anyone approaches you in old British territory speaking a totally unintelligible tongue of which even the basic sounds are quite unfamiliar, it is probably English. I was led into another office where numerous volumes were ranged around the walls. I noted with interest that these contained the photographs and details of prohibited persons. It is still astonishing to me that it is possible for such a young country to have prohibited so many people. Having sought me in vain for some considerable time, the woman lay aside the volumes with what appeared to be a deep sense of disappointment. The next problem lay in my having produced two passport photographs which were joined together. They should have been separate and I was rebuked for presenting them in this condition. There began a protracted search for the scissors. Many people were involved in this, furniture was moved, the volumes of prohibited persons were shaken. Trying to show willing, I looked half-heartedly on the floor. Again I was rebuked. This was an embassy and I was to touch and look at nothing. Finally, the scissors were traced to a man in the basement who, it appeared, was not authorized to possess them. This was explained at great length. We were all required to show our outrage. The next problem was whether the visa should be paid for or not. In my innocence I gladly offered to pay for it, not realizing that this was a major issue. The head of the section would have to decide. Back to the waiting room, where finally another Cameroonian appeared who perused my documents with great attention and required me to explain myself yet again, looking the whole time extremely suspicious of my motives. The basic difficulty here, as in other areas, is explaining why the British government should find it worth while to pay its young people fairly large sums of money to go off to desolate parts of the world purportedly to study peoples who are locally notorious for their ignorance and backwardness. How could anyone make money out of such studies? Clearly some sort of hidden purpose is involved. Spying, mineral prospecting or smuggling must be the real motive. The only hope is to pass oneself off as a harmless idiot who knows no better. I succeeded in this. Finally I was given my visa, a huge rubber-stamped confection with what was clearly a heavily Africanized version of Marianne, the French revolutionary heroine. As I left, I felt strangely tired with a lingering sense of humiliation and disbelief. It was a feeling I was to grow to know well.

I now had something like a week to put my affairs in order and complete my arrangements. Vaccinations had played quite a large role in my life for some months and there remained only a final yellow fever shot before I was fully proofed. Unfortunately, this gave me a fever and vomiting attacks that rather diminished my enjoyment of farewells. I was issued with an intimidating box of drugs and a list of the symptoms they would cure, almost all of which I already had from the inoculations.

It was the moment for final words of advice. My immediate family, who were entirely innocent of anthropological expertise, knew only that I was mad enough to go to savage lands where I would live in the jungle, constantly menaced by lions and snakes, and might be lucky enough to escape the cooking pot. It came as some comfort to me when I was about to leave Dowayoland that the chief of my village said that he would gladly accompany me back to my English village but that he feared a country where it was always cold, where there were savage beasts like the European dogs at the mission and where it was known there were cannibals.

The ethnographer is faced with a basic decision at the outset if he needs a vehicle. Either he can buy one here, fill it with all the goods he will need to survive and ship it out, or he can arrive unencumbered at his destination and buy what he needs from scratch. The advantage of the former method lies in cheapness and the certainty of finding what you want. Its disadvantage lies simply in the frustration of the extra contact with customs officials and other bureaucrats who will blandly impound it, charge duty on it, stand it in the monsoon till it rots, allow it to be rifled, insist on minute certified lists in quadruplicate, countersigned and stamped by other officials hundreds of miles away and otherwise gleefully harass and persecute the newcomer. Many of these difficulties will magically melt away in the face of a well-placed bribe, but the calculation of the appropriate sum and the point at which the bribe should be offered requires a fineness of touch that the newcomer will lack. He may well end up in serious trouble if he attempts this proceeding incautiously.

A book should doubtless be compiled of "sayings to young ethnographers about to go into the field". It is rumoured that the eminent anthropologist Evans-Pritchard would simply tell his protégés, "Get yourself a decent hamper from Fortnum and Mason's and keep away from the native women." Another West Africanist would reveal that the secret of successful fieldwork lay in the possession of a good string vest. In my own case I was told to complete my will (which I did), to take nail varnish for the local dandies (which I didn't) and to buy myself a good penknife (which broke). A lady anthropologist revealed to me the address of a London shop where I could buy shorts with locust-proof pocket-flaps. I felt these to be an unnecessary luxury.

The difficulty of the second method, of simply arriving and buying what is necessary, is that it is extremely expensive. Cars cost at least double what they do over here and choice is very limited. The newcomer, unless he is very lucky, is unlikely to strike a good bargain.

In my innocence, I opted for the second alternative, partly because I had no time to prepare myself lavishly and was eager to be off.