178 AFOOT THROUGH THE 



CHAPTER XV 



Are we not happy? Sunlit air, 

 Soft colour, floods of dewy light, 



A flowery perfume everywhere 



Pour out their wealth for our delight. 



E. W. Gosse. 



I start for cooler regions Good ponies and annoying attendants 

 I lose my temper and feel the heat Arrived in cooler 

 regions I arrange my camp and note the colour of spring 

 flowers. 



SEARCHING city waterways and scouring lake lanes had 

 been pleasant occupations so long as the weather was 

 not too oppressive and the sun shorn somewhat of his 

 full power, but there arrived a day when it was too hot 

 to walk, the lake was too mosquito -covered to be 

 visited, and merchants and customers were alike too 

 listless to take interest in the cheapening of an 

 embroidery or the defeat of a rival salesman. Heat 

 has a way of drawing the backbone and moral fibre out 

 of a human being, so that all shame ceases at the 

 shirking of any effort. Nations would cease to rage and 

 men to wrangle if only enough warmth could be engen- 

 dered to reduce nature to a condition of emotionless 

 pulp! 



Preferring an existence of storm and stress to a 



