EVENINGS IN CAMP 51 



guinea-fowl before sunset, when the nightjars begin 

 to swoop and flicker over the grass, and you come 

 home to dinner. In places where there are very 

 many mosquitoes you must dine by daylight, and 

 get into the mosquito-net soon after sunset ; but 

 that does not very often happen, and you can 

 generally sit out of doors under the stars and watch 

 the picturesque groups of porters as they sit eating 

 and always talking about their camp-fires. One 

 dinner in camp is very much like another, and I 

 can only remember one that stands out from amongst 

 the rest. It was Christmas Day, almost the first 

 day that I was on the road, and, like royalty, I had 

 music in the shape of a drum and a flute to entertain 

 me at my feast. Maggi, prepared with water that 

 oozed with difficulty out of a swamp, was not the 

 delectable consomind that the label claimed it to be ; 

 the curried cuckoo (Swahili for chicken) was an osteo- 

 logical monstrosity, and the lukewarm Crosse and 

 Blackwell's Christmas pudding out of a tin would 

 have vanquished the stoutest heart. The best part of 

 the dinner was a blue water-lily stuck in an empty 

 bottle, with which I decorated the table in honour 

 of the day. But dinner (in Africa, at all events) 

 is only a preface to tobacco and a book and 

 bed. There are probably few people that ever 

 lived who would have been more out of place in 

 Mid-Africa than Mr. Pepys, but I found him a 

 most constant and faithful companion, who never 

 failed me. 



4—2 



