342 BELIEF IN GHOSTS. 



going the shortest distance from the waggon, in 

 search of the necessary fuel for the fire, which all 

 knew to be the grand protector from the mysterious 

 beings with whom their imaginations had peopled 

 the locality. 



With good appetite I ate my piece of roasted 

 kid. With better appetite the natives stowed away 

 an enormous potful of mealy porridge. 



Hunger satisfied — speaking for myself — feeling at 

 amity with all the world, I reclined on my " karosses" 

 lit my pipe, and in the everchanging puffs of smoke 

 saw or recalled memories of the past. 



In this state, if I had not been interrupted, I 

 might have remained till my big load of tobacco had 

 burned away ; but I was interrupted, for my con- 

 founded followers, although redolent of the botiquet 

 de ncgre, would keep crowding closer and closer 

 upon me. Such a proceeding was unusual with them, 

 so I remonstrated, but to no purpose. 



I have often thought the black man, in his origi- 

 nal state, like a child, for white children I have seen 

 act exactly in the same way as my followers were 

 doing, when they have imagined themselves in an 

 uncanny place. 



The storm that had passed away was soon fol- 

 lowed by another, less violent possibly, but still suffici- 

 ently powerful to make the old trees creak and groan 

 under its mighty influence ; and now the night birds 

 found their voices and added their weird notes to 



