JOY OF THE OPEN LIFE 51 



leaf, and flower, wet with the dew, comes the scent 

 of freshness ; and the cold morning air and the 

 marching make the blood go rushing through 

 one's veins. Then, after four or five hours of 

 marching, comes rest, when the caravan is halted, 

 fires are lighted, and food is cooked ; and one 

 confesses that the smell of the breakfast equals 

 the scent from the morning grass. 



When the days are getting warmer at the end 

 of spring, or in summer, there is a long halt at 

 midday, in the shade, and if it can be, by a stream, 

 and then the caravan marches again in the even- 

 ing until camp is reached. Now the tent is 

 pitched, the evening fires lighted, and round them 

 gather careless, happy carriers, who will laugh and 

 sing to the simple music of the "sansa" till long 

 into the night. Sometimes one is too tired to sleep, 

 or too happy, that first night in camp ; and then 

 the silence of the forest is so strange that the hunter, 

 who has escaped from the noises of the town, may 

 lie a\vake to listen for the voices of the jungle. 



Marching south-east from Melanje, through 

 some 9 miles of open country, we reached at 

 11 a.m. the Cuinje River, a tributary of the 

 Coanza ; and after lunch, the post Cangandalla, 

 10 miles farther on, in the afternoon. The 

 streams we passed were at their lowest, for the 

 rains, which had ceased three months before in 

 May, were due again in the coming month of 

 September, and where now were shallow clear 

 streams or even a line of stagnant pools, would 

 soon be a racing nn->: ^orhaps impassable flood of 

 yellow water. 



