400 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES. 



The country now became very rough, in a 

 small way. The feeble light of our leading 

 lantern revealed only ghosts and phantoms 

 and looming, warning suggestions of things which 

 the shadows confused and shifted. Heavily laden 

 men would have found it difficult travelling by 

 prosaic daylight ; but now, with the added im- 

 possibility of picking a route ahead, we found 

 ourselves in all sorts of trouble. Many times we 

 had to back out and try again. The ghostly 

 flickering tree shapes against the fathomless 

 black offered us apparently endless aisles that 

 nevertheless closed before us like the doors of a 

 trap when we attempted to enter them. 



We kept doggedly to the same general north- 

 erly direction. When you are lost, nothing is 

 more foolish than to make up your mind hastily 

 and without due reflection ; and nothing is more 

 foolish than to change your mind once you have 

 made it up. That way vacillation, confusion, and 

 disaster lie. Should you decide, after due con- 

 sideration of all the elements of the problem, 

 that you should go east, then east you go, and 

 nothing must turn you. You may get to the 

 Atlantic Ocean if nothing else. And if you begin 

 to modify your original plan, then you begin 

 to circle. Believe me ; I know. 



