CHAPTER XIII 



A MORNING'S RIDE THROUGH RHINO 

 COUNTRY 



WHEN the weather is fine I always breakfast in the 

 open by the glowing embers of the watch-fire of the 

 night before. Just as I had finished my meal this morning, 

 the sun's rim rose on the plain my back was to the sunrise 

 and quickly out of the gray dawning light a perfect rain- 

 bow shaped itself, so near, so clear, that one could surely 

 mark the very spot where would at last be found by some- 

 body the "golden key" which, as every well-educated child 

 knows, or used to know, lies hidden in the ground at the place 

 the rainbow starts from. There was not yet enough sun- 

 shine to make the edges of this sunrise rainbow very distinct, 

 but the arch of it was very high and very perfect, and in the 

 middle of its great bow all the morning vapours had taken on 

 a soft rosy tinge wonderful to see. 



"A rainbow at morning the shepherd's warning," says 

 the old Scotch saw. At the Equator nature will not b 

 bound by the rigid rules of the North, so my rainbow ushered 

 in a delightful day. 



I have said that there was but little colour among the trees 

 and shrubs of this part of Africa. But its very rarity makes 

 its presence all the more welcome when you do light on it. 

 Here to-day as I ride is colour indeed. It brushes against 

 my mule, raises its sweetness to my face, hangs on all 

 sides ready to be plucked and appreciated. Our way winds 

 among scattered thickets of a straggling gray bush not 

 particularly noticeable till its flowering time conies which 

 seems to last many weeks but stop then and examine what 



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