XI. 

 A MARCH ALONG THE COAST. 



WITH a most comfortable feeling that my 

 task was done, that suddenly the threat- 

 ening clouds of killing work had been cleared 

 up, I was now privileged to loaf and invite 

 my soul on this tropical green hilltop while poor 

 F. put in the days trying to find another sable. 

 Every morning he started out before daylight. 

 I could see the light of his lantern outside the 

 tent ; and I stretched myself in the luxurious con- 

 sciousness that I should hear no deprecating but 

 insistent " hodie " from my boy until I pleased 

 to invite it. In the afternoon or evening F. 

 would return, quite exhausted and dripping, 

 with only the report of new country traversed. 

 No sable ; no tracks of sable ; no old signs, even, 

 of sable. Gradually it was borne in on me how 

 lucky I was to have come upon my magnificent 



