THE LAND OF FOOTPRINTS 



black world moved; only instant by instant it 

 changed, swelling in glory toward some climax until 

 one expected at any moment a fanfare of trumpets, 

 the burst of triumphant culmination. 



Then very far down in the distance a lion roared. 

 The wildebeeste, without moving, bellowed back an 

 answer or a defiance. Down in the hollow an os- 

 trich boomed. Zebra barked, and several birds 

 chirped strongly. The tension was breaking not in 

 the expected fanfare and burst of triumphal music, 

 but in a manner instantly felt to be more fitting to 

 what was indeed a wonder, but a daily wonder for all 

 that. At one and the same instant the rim of the 

 sun appeared and the wildebeeste, after the sudden 

 habit of his kind, made up his mind to go. He 

 dropped his head and came thundering down past 

 us at full speed. Straight to the west he headed, 

 and so disappeared. We could hear the beat of his 

 hoofs dying into the distance. He had gone like a 

 Warder of the Morning whose task was finished. 

 On the knife-edged skyline appeared the silhouette 

 of slim-legged little Tommies, flirting their tails, 

 sniffing at the dewy grass, dainty, slender, confiding, 

 the open-day antithesis of the tremendous and awe- 

 some lord of the darkness that had roared its way to 

 its lair, and to the massive shaggy herald of morn- 

 ing that had thundered down to the west. 



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