But Then, As Far As I Know,

When You Start About Family, About Lineage And Ancestry, You Are Talking About Every Person On Earth.

I Suppose That It Was Inevitable That My Word-base Broadened. I Could Now For The First Time Pick Up A Book And Read And Now Begin To Understand What The Book Was Saying. Anyone Who Has Read A Great Deal Can Imagine The New World That Opened. Let Me Tell You Something: From Then Until I Left That Prison, In Every Free Moment I Had, If I Was Not Reading In The Library, I Was Reading In My Bunk. You Couldn’t Have Gotten Me Out Of My Books With A Wedge...months Passed Without My Even Thinking About Being Imprisoned. In Fact, Up To Then, I Never Had Been So Truly Free In My Life.

You Don't Spend Twenty Years Of Your Life In The Service And Not Have A Warm, Nostalgic Feeling Left In You. It's A Small Service, And There's A Lot Of Esprit De Corps.

But Then, As Far As I Know, As Far As I've Studied Or Heard Or Picked Up, It Seems That This Type Of Thing Is A Curse Against Mankind.

Early In The Spring Of 1750, In The Village Of Juffure, Four Days Upriver From The Coast Of The Gambia, West Africa, A Manchild Was Born To Omoro And Binta Kinte.