108 THROUGH GASA LAND. 



method of practising this graceful and entrancing 

 form of the sport. But that a change of diet is 

 desirable, I doubt much that I could be induced to 

 demean myself by doing it. 



The first thing to be done was to restore our 

 camp to a habitable state. This was not a difficult 

 task with able and skilled hands to work, so a new 

 hut, more ample in space, and I might add more 

 graceful and desirable in shape, soon occupied the 

 space of our late residence. Next came the surface 

 drainage to be reconstructed ; although this is only 

 a ditch a foot in width and nine inches in depth, 

 still it is a most important factor to the comfort 

 and sanitation of the residence. To Jim and two 

 others I detailed this duty. In a minute after 

 receiving their instructions they were in a state 

 of nature, so no deception, no tailor's artifice, no 

 actor's trickery of making up or padding figures 

 were possible to exist. When they stripped off 

 their clothes — to wit, their harasses — at their work 

 they went, and I actually envied them their ease and 

 comfort in their unfettered condition. They had 

 better use of their limbs, were not impeded by tight 

 clothing or corn-creating shoes, while in an econo- 

 mical point of view they far eclipsed all civilised 

 working men I know of. Before me laboured these 

 Apollos, as perfect in symmetry and development as 

 the classical god himself. These men are the result 

 of being the descendants of perfectly matured 



