56 - THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



made us feel singularly light-hearted, and as the 

 water splashed the donkey's legs L. sang — 



Oh, there's lots of gold, 



So I've been told, 



On the banks of the Ruenya ! 



These banks were festooned with lianas, 

 monkey ropes and trailing creepers. Beneath 

 our feet there was dense green undergrowth, 

 and overhead the foliage of giant trees often 

 met and shut out the brilliant azure of the 

 sky. Along the river grew bushes, covered with 

 " macao " berries — a species of wild fruit about 

 the size of a gooseberry and possessing a peculiarly 

 seductive taste. Here and there were rifts in the 

 luxury of the vegetation, and then the eye caught 

 glimpses of the river flowing quietly away to 

 Massangano and the mother stream that churns 

 up mud and sand on the edge of the Indian 

 Ocean. The still, placid waters basked in the 

 sunshine. Birds of plumage most glorious flitted 

 like bats in the semi-darkness of the tropic 

 avenues or burst through the open belts, their 

 feathers blazing like burnished gold or polished 

 purple. 



There were guinea-fowl here in great numbers. 

 At dusk they came running down the sandy 

 stretches of the river in armies. All day long 

 we could hear their curious, cackling, buzzing 

 noise, as they either picked up seeds and grain 

 around old native gardens or perched themselves 

 on tree-tops and surveyed the landscape. We 

 depended largely on guinea-fowl for the " pot." 

 Sometimes we flushed them in our march and 

 sometimes we shot them from tree-tops. It 

 sounds very unsporting, but when you are 

 trekking up into the interior of Africa after 



