A FRANCOLIN PERCHED ON A THORN-BUSH, 



VII 



The Voices of the Wilderness 



^^HE German sportsman knows well the mysterious 

 charm that speaks to the listener, when in the 

 woods in spring he hears the note of the woodcock and 

 the cry of the ptarmigan, and when in autumn he hears 

 the call of the stag to its mate. It must be that the 

 listener is subject to some atavistic influence, some 

 impulse rooted in the dim past now quickening into life. 



Let him who understands this charm follow me through 

 the equatorial wilderness, and listen with me to the music 

 of songs and notes that we may call the language of 

 the Nyika. We shall hear it there on every side, by 

 day and by night. True, fully to understand this language 

 one should have King Solomon's magic power, which 

 made its possessor understand the speech of animals, or 

 like Siegfried have dipped one's hand in the blood of 



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