In Wildest Africa ^ 



resounds only something like an agonised cry for help 

 from weak creatures in the direst peril of death. 



Millions of larks fly thus each year southwards and 

 northwards, obedient to that mysterious migratory impulse 

 that guides them on their way. 



The song of the lark and the cry of the lark are 

 very different things. To those who know them they 

 mean a song of happy springtime, and a cry for help 

 in the night of death. 



How comes it that I thus speak of, and have to think 

 of, sounds uttered by the birds here at home ? Simply 

 because over there, in other lands, my fancy so often and 

 so readily imagined the flying bird to be a messenger, — a 

 courier for thoughts of home, — and connected such wishes 

 and longings with its appearance and disappearance. 



In autumn, the noblest of our northern songsters 

 makes its way in a few days and nights into the inmost 

 heart of the Dark Continent. It disappears again in 

 spring, to return to the north over velt and desert, 

 morass, mountain and sea. The cuckoo, that only a 

 few days ago could be seen in our northern lands by the 

 eyes of men who knew how to recognise it, I see on the 

 African velt, a wandering, fleeting visitor. Thus it seems 

 to bring me a greeting, like that brought by our oriole, 

 our nightingale, and many other children of the homeland. 



No one can be surprised that in these solitudes these 

 birds, and their coming and going, are closely associated 

 with our thouorhts. It is the less to be wondered at 

 seeing that they are all such eloquent witnesses to the 

 miracle that these weak creatures with their feeble wings 



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