-^ The Lonely Wonder-world of the Nyika 



on we rise, sailing through banks and clouds to a height 

 of nine thousand feet above the earth, but before this 

 hio^her ascent we have time and leisure to take a bird's- 

 eye view of " all that creeps and flies." What an outlook 

 over forest and plain ! As we fly over them, horses 

 grazing in paddocks, cattle on the pastures, for a moment 

 suggest to me an illusion of the African velt peopled 

 with its wild life. The eye, again and again fascinated 

 by this prospect as a whole, can hardly grasp the details. 

 Now our course is over endless open heaths, over moors 

 and woodlands. The fleet-footed red deer, frightened by 

 the drag-rope, look up in astonishment and stare at the 

 strange monster, not knowing whither to turn in flight 

 from such a menacing apparition. How the strange 

 monster was a few hours later within a hair's breadth of 

 burying us in the waves of the Baltic Sea is another 

 story. . . . 



How many hundred times, after I had gone back to 

 the Dark Continent, have I wished for such a lofty 

 observatory, an airship that would bear me over velt 

 and desert, and from which I could fathom all the secrets 

 of the animal world of the tropics, instead of having to 

 travel toilsomely, fettered to the earth, often merely 

 making step after step automatically in the blazing heat 

 of the sun. When one day such a wish as this is fulfilled, 

 that animal world in its beauty and splendour will have 

 to a great extent passed away. . . . 



I must, therefore, content myself with lofty ob- 

 servatories of another kind, that are not unfrequently 



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