112 



ON SAFARI 



A cup of black coffee in bed at the hour named, 

 with breakfast twenty minutes later, enables this 

 essential to be fulfilled. 



The whole joy and glory of the tropical day are 

 confined to its earlier hours. That is the time when 

 the world of the wilderness is amove, when its beauties 

 and infinite variety of forms can be seen and appreci- 

 ated to the best advantage. Later, when the whole 

 landscape is drenched in a brazen sun-glare that bites 

 like the breath of a furnace, but little, by comparison, 

 will be seen, and exertion becomes well-nigh impossible. 



WHITE-BROWED coucAL, OR BUSH-CUCKOO {Centropus supcrcUiosus). 

 Crown of head and tail dark ; upper parts chestnut. 



From the darkness without, as one sips that early 

 coffee, there resound the bubbling notes of bush-cuckoo 

 and nightjar ; the last wail of the laughing hyena, 

 possibly the roar of a distant lion, precede the dawn. 

 Following these, but ere yet a sign of light is apparent, 

 a chorus of infinite doves awakes the day — " Chuck-her- 

 up, chuck-her-up," in endless iteration. " Chock-taw, 

 chock-taw," responds another species. Then the 

 whistling call-notes of francolins and the harsher cackle 

 of guinea-fowl resound from the bush on every side. 



Already one is out and away, brushing through dew- 

 laden grass that soaks to the waist. What matter that. 



