Edrich bent forward and put his glasses on. He placed on the table a list of points he had drawn up. “I have,” he said, “recently submitted, in six copies, my final report and this will shortly be available”—he turned up another paper—“under the document symbol E dash DALTO 604”—he glanced again at the paper in his hand—“slash two.” He therefore proposed, he said, to give only a brief summary of his work to the present meeting, and with this in mind had prepared a list of points on which emphasis might effectively be laid. (Flinders, looking over his shoulder, saw that there were fourteen of these, on which emphasis had already been effectively laid by underlinings.) Moreover, in accordance with instructions, Edrich had brought with him a short film showing various stages of his performance in the field.

Rodriguez-O’Hearn here suggested that the film be shown first, in order to give even greater reality to Edrich’s list of points. A young man was sent for who, under Edrich’s supervision, set up the reel in the projector. Rodriguez shifted his chair, and Flinders, who had his elbows on the table, was asked to move back so that the lady on his right might see the screen. Edrich borrowed a ruler from the outer office, the lights were put out, and the film was set, hissing and crackling, in motion.

Flinders was immediately struck by the similarity of the opening scene to the countryside he had just left. The eroded hills, though steeper, were garlanded with terraces of vines and fruit trees and glittered white in the meridional sunshine. The village, though even smaller than El Attara, was composed of the same whitewashed houses, the same worn steps and pitted doors. At the well, the women stood talking with their jars at their feet or their children in their arms, and outside the single tavern the old men played cards. The camera wavered over flat roofs and small peeling domes and squinted at stony hills. And upon the whole, as though marking a target, Edrich’s ruler now described a great circle.

“This was the deplorable condition of the area when I arrived. Low level of overall production, cottage industries static for centuries, poor communications with neighboring towns, no telegraph or telephone system, partial electrification, dissemination of information by shepherd’s rumor, little or no interest in national or international events. In short, minimal adjustment to contemporary requirements, and incomplete utilization of resources.”

Screaming with laughter, a child raced into the camera’s path in pursuit of a crowd of chickens.