42 FEOM THE NIGER TO THE NILE 



of the Lake, and their famihar cries and flight took one back 

 to the shores and estuaries at home. 



Even at this distance of time and space, my thoughts 

 often return to the mystic Lake, saihng over her grey waters 

 at sunset, past the endless dark reed headlands that couch 

 hke monsters guarding the brazen gates of the West ; or 

 wander along the shorehne where from their drinking the 

 herd of hartebeest slowly tails back across the plain to the 

 woods beyond, and the spur-winged geese rise from their 

 feeding in the green pasture at the water's edge. On the 

 soft mud surface where the Lake has come and gone with 

 the rise and fall of the wind, I see again the hosts of yellow 

 wagtails running to and fro more hght and nimble than the 

 froth blown by the harmattan. Beyond the point where the 

 islands He across the river mouth, wreaths of white gulls- 

 circhng in the sky tell of the islanders at their fishing. But 

 soon with the sudden fall of the dark, the crested canoes- 

 steal out and glide like black swans in the twilight across the 

 water -space to disappear, and the storks fly home to the 

 woods and leave the lonely pelicans riding in their sleep upon 

 the wilderness of water. 



