-^ The Lonely Wonder-world of the Nyika 



moments! It may be that memory conjures up for us the 

 delightful fairy-Hke image of a rare dwarf antelope seen 

 perhaps once only in the shades of the forest, a dwarf 

 antelope that, with strange large eyes and ears alert, 

 watches one's approach, and then like a flash of lightning 

 disappears in the thickets ; it may be that in memory 

 one sees the reddish brown, mud-smeared body of a giant 

 elephant emerge from the midst of some densely tangled 

 primeval forest ; it may be that a tree suddenly bursting 

 into bloom yields me a wonderfully beautiful new kind of 

 bird, which I grasp in my hand, delighted with its robe 

 of feathers ; it may be that suddenly the massive giant 

 form of a rhinoceros appears before me in the tall grass, 

 unexpected, menacing, standing as if chiselled out of stone; 

 it may be that my free gaze ranges without limit over the 

 wide prospect, and sees in primitive abundance the strange 

 life of the tropics ; in every case the impressions received 

 seem to the beholder fascinating beyond description. 



Monotonous as the surroundings of the landscape may 

 appear to the newcomer, poor and barren though the 

 velt may seem to be for weeks at a time, yet, enlivened 

 and permeated by the mighty flood of all this strange 

 animal life, it has a beauty and a charm whose influence 

 no one can escape who makes his way into the midst 

 of it with open heart and eyes. 



He who looks around him with clear-sighted vision, 

 and tries to see more than others, has revealed to him 

 the beauties of Nature in the greatest and most wonderful 

 way, and is drawn in the highest sense of the word to 

 admiration of them. Here is verified, as Sir Harry 



255 



