THE LAND OF FOOTPRINTS 



Mountains at our backs, of course — at some 

 distance; then plains in long low swells like the easy 

 rise and fall of a tropical sea, wave after wave, and 

 over the edge of the world beyond a distant horizon. 

 Here and there on this plain, single hills lay becalmed, 

 like ships at sea; some peaked, some cliifed like buttes, 

 some long and low like the hulls of battleships. The 

 brown plain flowed up to wash their bases, liquid 

 as the sea itself, its tides rising in the coves of the 

 hills, and ebbing in the valleys between. Near at 

 hand, in the middle distance, far away, these fleets 

 of the plain sailed, until at last hull-down over the 

 horizon their topmasts disappeared. Above them 

 sailed too the phantom fleet of the clouds, shot with 

 light, shining like silver, airy as racing .yachts, yet 

 casting here and there exaggerated shadows be- 

 low. 



The sky in Africa is always very wide, greater than 

 any other skies. Between horizon and horizon is 

 more space than any other world contains. It is as 

 though the cup of heaven had been pressed a little 

 flatter; so that while the boundaries have widened, 

 the zenith, with its flaming sun, has come nearer. 

 And yet that is not a constant quantity either. I 

 have seen one edge of the sky raised straight up a 

 few million miles, as though some one had stuck 

 poles under its corners, so that the western heaven 



20 



