GAEUA AND THE NORTH KAMERUN 27 



When we landed, our belongings were carried for 

 some considerable distance up a narrow track, 

 through thick rank grass, with the aid of village 

 women. The tents were pitched beneath a huge tree, 

 outside a large open enclosure which proved to be 

 the mosque ; and night and morning we heard men 

 calling upon the name of Allah, This camp was a 

 memorable one for me, as it was the first time I had 

 ever slept beneath canvas. The first time, too, that 

 I had a loaded revolver beneath my pillow, and we 

 heard the distant howls of hyena and leopard and 

 the grunt of baboon. Quantities of frogs entered 

 my tent, and from the shelter of a mosquito-net it 

 was quite fun to watch them jump. They set them- 

 selves an obstacle to surmount, some four to six inches 

 high — often the back of the lamp ; and this they 

 attempted again and again on the tiddliewinks principle. 

 I should not have watched them so complacently had 

 I realised they had come in pursuit of insects, with 

 which my clothes were covered, and that in the 

 morning, as I shook them out, my hand would again 

 and again touch the clammy, squelchy body of some 

 bloated and well-fed frog. Nor did I realise, either, 

 that even as the frogs came in pursuit of flies, so 

 would snakes come in pursuit of them ; and it was 

 an unpleasant shock to see a dust -coloured snake 

 emerge quietly from under my bed and slither away 

 into the open. 



Morning and evening we went out hunting ; but 

 though we saw the tracks of Senegal hartebeeste 

 and heard rumours of lion, the thick grass prevented 

 our seeing anything. It grew to five or six feet in 

 height, and brushed into our eyes as we walked ; but 



