AFRICAN CAMP FIRES 



evening. Fairly between sentences of our slow 

 conversation, however, it rushed up to the zenith, 

 blotting out the stars. The tall palms began to 

 sway and rustle in the forerunning breeze. Then 

 with a swoop it was upon us, a tempest of fury. 

 We turned in; and all night long the heavy deluges 

 of rain fell, roaring like surf on an unfriendly coast. 



By morning this had fallen to a light steady drizzle 

 in which we started off quite happily. In this 

 climate one likes to get wet. The ground was 

 sodden and deep with muck. Within a mile of camp 

 we saw many fresh buffalo tracks. 



This time we went downhill, and still downhill 

 through openings among patches of great forest 

 trees. The new leaves were just coming out in 

 pinks and russets, so that the effect at a little dis- 

 tance was almost precisely that of our autumn 

 foliage in the duller phases. So familiar thus were 

 made some of the low rounded knolls that for an 

 instant we were respectively back in the hills of 

 Surrey or Michigan — and told each other so. 



Thus we moved slowly out from the dense cover 

 to the grass openings. Far over on another ridge 

 F. called my attention to something jet-black and 

 indeterminate. In another country I should have 

 named it as a charred log on an old pine burning; 

 for that was precisely what it looked like. We 



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