260 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



land that holds men enraptured through the 

 cheerless dawn of a fever bed in the wilderness, 

 and beckons them away from all that culture 

 and enlightenment proclaim as the joy of living, 

 be dumb, then must I shake my head in the 

 knowledge that no words of mine can ever frame 

 a reply. Africa, where the women have no 

 beauty, the birds no song, the flowers no scent, 

 and the rivers no water. How often have I 

 listened to that elaborate condemnation ! How 

 true at first I thought it all was ! But with the 

 flight of years there has come to me an apprecia- 

 tion of the beauty of the ill-featured women, 

 I can hear music in the cry of the Lourie, even 

 the thorny aloe contains a perfume, and I think 

 a dried-up stream-bed can float for me more 

 charming fancies than the soot-stained waters 

 of the Thames. 



Thus have I learned my Africa. 



