Feeling of Expectancy 



and come upon the fresh tracks of elephants; you 

 turn an angle of the road and find a refreshing stretch 

 of the water of an unsuspected lake. 



A great deal is due, of course, to the ever and 

 rapidly changing natural effects. At morning the 

 landscape appears quite unfamiliar ; the clouds in the 

 valleys give the appearance of huge lakes, with the 

 tops of the hills as islands in their midst. Compare 

 the same view a few hours later, bathed in a tropical 

 sunlight ; you cannot recognize it. And probably 

 before you can hold your breath a further dramatic 

 change is rendered before your eyes with startling 

 rapidity. Nimbus clouds, from nowhere in particular, 

 rush together, and banking up in ominous and 

 majestic splendour, blot out the sun. It is as if 

 someone had inserted a darker slide into the magic 

 lantern. A gale springs up, and in a quarter of a 

 minute you see an enormous sheet, like a grey, 

 flimsy veil, quickly advancing towards you down the 

 valley. It has reached you at last. You see nothing, 

 but you hear the sound of rivers of rushing water on 

 all sides of you, as paralyzed by helplessness you 

 await till rescued once more by the tropical sun 

 peeping out of its clear blue sky. 



As I was musing on this theme, deep in the 

 midst of my thoughts, my "toto," or small house 

 boy, rushed in shouting " Kanga," or guinea-fowl. 



I had my puttees off at the time, but I picked 

 up my shot-gun and ran down the hillside with my 

 bare legs. I soon found myself floundering in some 

 long grass under some tall and fine spreading trees 



119 



