A JODELLING PORTER 47 



One day I was walking along the hateful road, 

 wondering why such a miserable country had ever 

 been made, when of a sudden I heard a distant 

 jodel. I thought I must be dreaming, or had sun- 

 stroke, or a sudden attack of fever ; but it was a 

 real jodel, as good as ever I heard in the Alps. 

 On it came, up ^he hills and down into the hollows, 

 and soon I met an ordinary Uganda porter striding 

 along with a load upon his head and jodelling to 

 himself as happily as could be. I should have 

 liked to shake him by the hand, and ask him where 

 he learnt to do it, but I did not want to interrupt 

 the tune, so I passed him with a silent blessing. 

 Perhaps he was with the Duke of the Abruzzi, and 

 learnt it from his guides, or perhaps he got it from 

 Mr. Douglas Freshfield's guide the year before. 

 As the sound went dwindling away into the dis- 

 tance, I had only to shut my eyes and find myself 

 in green meadows redolent of cattle and wild- 

 flowers, or on a snow-peak with all the Alps about 

 me, instead of plodding along a hot and lumpy road, 

 through as dreary a country as ever was made. 



Dull and monotonous though most of the days 

 are, there is always a happy moment in every day, 

 and that is when you come in sight of the camping- 

 ground, and, if the porters have marched well, the 

 tent is pitched and a fire burning. Along most of 

 the roads in Uganda there have been made at 

 intervals of ten or fifteen miles regular camping- 

 places, usually within reach of a village with sufficient 



