Competition: Literally Lost Number 82

This excerpt has been taken from a work of travel literature. Readers are invited to tell us: a) where is the action taking place? b) who is the author? Blackwell's Bookshops will award pounds 30-worth of book tokens to the first correct answer out of the hat. Answers on a postcard to: Literally Lost, Independent on Sunday, 1 Canada Square, London E14 5DL. Usual competition rules apply. Entries to arrive by this Thursday. Literally lost 81: The book was Full Circle by Michael Palin. The action took place in Nagasaki. The winner is J Tomas of Powys.

s we moved into the scrub, there was a flash of blue to our right, and for one nervous moment my senses pricked at the prospect of danger. But then a small man wandered into full view and greeted us amiably. He was looking after a flock of sheep and, after a few moments' conversation with ould Moha- mmed, was persuaded to part with a lamb. The 1,000 francs which my companion had taken from me at his tent for this purpose did not, I notice, change hands. The fellow virtually gave us the animal, taking only a little tobacco in return.

It was butchered on the spot. While the man held it on the ground, ould Mohammed, with one hand holding the animal's mouth tightly shut, thrust my sheath knife high into the upper part of its neck and sliced down to the throat. The blood spouted onto the sand in a thick jet, while the limbs thrashed wildly for a moment and a rasping cough of air came out of the almost severed neck. There was not a sound after this, though the legs continued to twitch with nervous spasms and then to kick with dying agony for several minutes.

When the lamb was still at last, its head lying at a broken angle to its stiff-legged body, a deep puddle of blood coagulating in the sand round the wound and a cloud of flies already descending to the feast, the two men began to skin it. This was a meticulous art, for the hide of any animal was a prized object and not to be spoiled in butchery. The knife slit the skin down the inside of the hind legs for a start, and then the entire pelt was eased off the carcass, ould Mohammed and the man punching with their fists to turn it inside out and separate it from the body. As the carcass was revealed, it looked almost like that of plucked chicken, and as the inside of the skin was exposed it shone a dull and milky blue, like the sheen on a newly landed mackerel.

I watched all this, the removal of the stomach and guts, with only the faintest stirring of emotion, for I was much changed by the desert.