114 THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY 



vine-hung jungle of darkness, coolness, little gray- 

 monkeys, and brilliant birds. When we had pitched 

 our tents inside this jungle we found ourselves in a 

 green room full of charming, intimate voices. No hint 

 of the fierceness of the equatorial sun reached us. 

 Yet twenty steps brought us into the open where we 

 could see the rolling green hills with their scattered 

 little trees, and distant mountains here and there to 

 the north, and the high, noble arch of the cloudless 

 African sky in which the sun burned all day long un- 

 obscured. And then twenty steps back again to the 

 stream — running water in a land of little choked 

 springs, of rare green sHmy pools, of rock pockets 

 fouled by game, and of long leagues of unmodified, 

 unmitigated thirst; cr)^stal clear water in a land of 

 silt where from year's end to year's end one never 

 hopes to see the bottom of his drinking cup for the 

 mud! Just to sit under the palm leaves where the 

 breeze sounded like on-coming rain, watching the shim- 

 mer and refraction and shifting of the waters, was a 

 marvel and a joy. March on four days more, perhaps 

 away from this stream? Not any! This was good 

 enough for us! 



In the afternoon I strolled over the fine green hills 

 and revelled in the sight of the game — black herds of 

 wildebeeste, like bison in the park openings, topi 

 everywhere, zebra, hartebeeste. Tommy, oribi, stein- 

 buck, impalla, reedbuck, and others. Out of the lot 



