34 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



intense, and there will soon arrive a day when 

 the camp will be deserted, and the prospector 

 will be eagerly trudging up the bush-clad slopes 

 of the mountains, his senses quickened by the 

 thought that by midday he will have scaled the 

 barrier to its summit, and will see below him 

 that land which is to make his fortune and repay 

 him for his years of toil and hardship. At last 

 the crest is reached, and there, rolling away in 

 a boundless wealth of forest and plain, is what 

 his eyes have longed to see for many, many days 

 of discontent. 



Once again this man, who cannot live within 

 the narrow confines of orthodox life, builds 

 himself a resting-place; once again a range of 

 hills thrusts itself on his nomadic mind. 



There is no word in the English language which 

 adequately expresses this all-absorbing passion 

 for knowledge of what lies on " the other side." 

 The Germans call it Wanderlust, and should you 

 roam much over the vast continent of Africa, 

 you will find that many are smitten with this 

 limitless fascination. Men have been known to 

 tramp across a waterless desert with the agonies 

 of fever racking every nerve and limb in an 

 attempt to still this subtle spirit. But it is 

 never stilled, and, so long as the world has 

 unknown spaces, it will survive and continue to 

 lure on men until their final journeys are com- 

 pleted, and they die with a mountain mocking 

 them in their last moments, or the final dawn 

 stealing across some great plain which they have 

 striven hard to traverse. Perhaps it is well that 

 the world should have such men. When great 

 industries arise in places reclaimed from the 

 desert, and high stacks belch forth their smoke 

 over the lands where the prospector toiled in his 



