82 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



he knew the mysterious Congo, and the gloomy 

 swamps; he had navigated Tanganyika, and 

 had indeed been as far north as Mumias on the 

 old ivory route from Victoria Nyanza to Mount 

 Elgon and Southern Abyssinia. 



After a while he would stop exhausted and run 

 his fingers through his extraordinarily long hair. 

 His breath would come in short, sharp gasps, and 

 I felt at times that I stood very near the last 

 milestone of his wanderings. 



Elephant spoor led me far away from him, 

 and then we met again at a little administrative 

 post where two other exiles had established 

 themselves. There was again something inde- 

 finably pathetic about him. His mind wandered 

 nearly as much as his feet had, and there dawned 

 on me the thought that sleeping sickness and 

 morphia had claimed him for their own. And 

 so they had. He died a month or two afterwards 

 with the desire of his beloved Africa as deep in him 

 as when he first felt her wondrous fascination. 

 I have often thought of Central Africa as a huge 

 lamp of death, and those who once get a glamour 

 of her vast lands as the poor moths of mankind 

 that will for ever hover round her, until they 

 destroy their lives in a hopeless endeavour to 

 probe the mystery of her attractions. Poor Z. 

 was but one of the moths, and I do not suppose 

 that his corpse will deter one other from journeying 

 on his last "ulendo" when the subtle influence 

 of the great continent has buried itself in the 

 soul of his desires. 



Happily for the world, it is a thin partition that 

 separates tragedy from comedy. Old Y. was 

 often a humorous person. And in a remarkable 

 degree he possessed one of the essential qualifica- 



