-^ 



The \\)ices of the Wilderness 



twice each year traverse continents and lly safely o\-er 

 seas. 



We cannot help thinking of the lark and its spring 

 song at home, when in the wilds of Africa we hear its 

 voice ; and it appeals so impressively to the wanderer in the 

 wilderness, that afterwards it has the power of bringing 

 l)ack by its music a i)icture of the Nyika in all its 

 characteristic wildness. It is a song that has a character 

 of its own. When 1 hear it, if it is in the Nyi'ka, 

 I cannot help thinking of the songster's frail, weak 

 brethren of Europe, that, following an irresistible 

 impulse, are perhaps at this moment meeting their 

 death on the little island of Heligoland — obedient to the 

 same instinct that sends myriads of their kind each )'ear 

 towards pole or equator. For even as the northern 

 song of the lark awakens the soft, poetic spell of 

 smiling fields, so, too, the mysterious and still deeply 

 veiled spell of the Nyi'ka can find expression in its 

 wonderful music. 



Small, invisible almost, it rises in the air. Soon it is 

 lost to sight in the sky. Then suddenly a song that, 

 though so often heard before, is still a marvel, comes 

 distinctly on the ear, its notes sharply accented and 

 emphasised as if it were close to us. There is a sharp, 

 rhythmical, clapping sound, as if small laths or pieces of 

 W'halebone were being rattled together. It comes from 

 that tree right in front of us. No mistake about it seems 

 possible. But the eye searches in vain for the producer 

 of the sound. 



Again and again one is deceived in this way. Who 

 VOL. I 305 20 



