In Wildest Africa -^ 



me under the darkness. Out of the soundless silence 

 there came the loud call of a gondolier waking up just 

 then on his boat .... then from the farthest distance 

 the same call answered back along the dark canal ; I 

 recognised the old, melancholy, melodious sounds, doubtless 

 as old as the canals of Venice and their people. After 

 a solemn pause the far-sounding dialogue at last began, 

 and it seemed to me to melt into harmony, till the notes 

 heard close at hand and coming more softly from afar 

 died away as sleep came back to me again." 



Who could describe in such noble words the impression 

 made upon our minds by the spell of the sounds and 

 songs of the nocturnal wildness, and all its strange and 

 beautiful music ? All that at first is strange there, and 

 even alarming, comes gradually to be something one 

 loves intimately. Shall I ever be able to listen to it all 

 again ? Who knows ? Let me try then to make some 

 record of what I have so often heard, and in these few 

 sentences attempt to give some faint echo of these once 

 familiar voices. 



We are in the midst of the great forest. Giant 

 podocarpus and juniper trunks rise up towards the sky. 

 It is cool and shady all around us here ; we breathe a 

 moist, and not unfrequently a musty air. The sunlight 

 plays only upon the tops of these giants of the primeval 

 woods, and can but scantily illumine the almost bare 

 ground below them, sending here and there shimmering, 

 dancing rays of light amongst the tree-trunks. High 

 overhead the giants arch their branches, interlacing them 

 in a vast living roof of green. Only where clearings 



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