...he had to get started on another trek into the countryside to survey
the population and economy, and the geography as well. He unrolled the
official maps of the country [British colonial Nigeria] which he was to
survey, an area fairly new to him, and found that although they were all
"white, clean & new," they were completely useless:

"Towns abandoned for years are entered in large letters, generally by
the wrong names — the towns that do exist aren't there — magnificent
roads on the map are mere jungle in reality, and new important highways
have been left out. Mountains are just put in with the eyes shut. I
shall have to start mapping at once, as I have to send in maps with my
reports."

(23 October 1918).

During his last tour he might have despaired over the useless maps and
cursed the men who made them and the government which issued them, but
now he treated the whole affair as a joke as he saw its ridiculous
aspects. Apparently the "wrong names" that he mentions were the same
sort of mistake he used in his novel /Castle Corner/, when Cock Jarvis
is mapping in Nigeria. They were the fault of the language barrier, for
the natives who were questioned about the names of their towns and
rivers and mountains simply didn't know what was going on. So onto the
official maps of Nigeria went What Did He Say? River and the town of I
Don't Know. In early November Joyce set out to draw up his own maps.

Joyce Cary, a Biography, by Malcolm Foster, p 178-179

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