THE LAST FRONTIER 



ling of thorns. . Before our tents stood the table set 

 for supper. Beyond it lay the pile of firewood, 

 later to be burned on the altar of our safety against 

 beasts. The moonlight was casting milky shadows 

 over the river and under the trees opposite. In 

 those shadows gleamed many fireflies. Overhead 

 were millions of stars, and a little breeze that wan- 

 dered through upper branches. 



But in Equatorial Africa the simple bands of vel- 

 vet black against the spangled brightnesses that 

 make up the visual night world, must give way in 

 interest to the other world of sound. The air hums 

 with an undertone of insects; the plain and hill and 

 jungle are populous with voices furtive or bold. In 

 daytime one sees animals enough, in all conscience, 

 but only at night does he sense the almost oppres- 

 sive feeling of the teeming life about him. The dark- 

 ness is peopled. Zebra, bark, bucks blow or snort 

 or make the weird noises of their respective species; 

 hyenas howl; out of an immense simian silence a 

 group of monkeys suddenly break into chatterings; 

 ostriches utter their deep hollow boom; small things 

 scurry and squeak; a certain weird bird of the cur- 

 lew or plover sort wails like a lonesome soul. Es- 

 pecially by the river, as here, are the boomings of the 

 weirdest of weird bullfrogs, and the splashings and 

 swishings of crocodile and hippopotamus. One is 



86 



