42 TRAVELLING IN UGANDA 



one starts at the first glimmer of dawn, and the 

 march is finished and tents are pitched before 

 midday. 



The pleasantest hour of all the day is the hour 

 just before and just after sunrise, when thin wisps 

 of mist float upwards from the marshes, when every 

 leaf and every blade of grass glitters with a hundred 

 drops of dew, and the air is filled with the songs of 

 birds. There are many people who believe that it 

 is only in Europe, and especially in England, that 

 birds can sing, but I have heard in Uganda and in 

 the neighbouring parts of the Congo State such a 

 morning chorus of birds as can only be equalled at a 

 May sunrise at home. Ibises fly screaming from 

 the papyrus swamps, turtle doves purr in the tops 

 of the acacias, thrushes sing in the banana groves, 

 and a host of others in the long grass and thick 

 undergrowth. By eight o'clock the dew has dis- 

 appeared, the birds are silent, and the sun is high 

 enough to make itself unpleasant. Then begins the 

 most tiring part of the day ; the clear sky of the 

 early morning becomes a coppery furnace ; there is 

 never a patch of shadow to relieve the dull brown 

 and green of the grass and papyrus and thorn-trees, 

 and the stony road under foot becomes almost 

 intolerably hot. The porters, who up till now have 

 been ahead out of sight and smell (I shall never 

 learn to tolerate the peculiar bouquet ot the African), 

 and, if possible, forgotten, are discovered lurking by 

 the roadside and trying to take shelter from the sun 



