DESCRIPTIVE 27 



laughter, come echoing up from the big wood 

 fires arovmd which they are resting, and, as night 

 falls, the tremiilous cry of a night- jar, and the 

 melancholy " bwe-bwe " of a wandering jackal, 

 very shortly give place to more sinister sounds, 

 when the long-drawn sigh of an awakening Hon 

 takes the very heart of the woods with terror. 



So we have bathed and put on warm evening 

 clothes ; dinner has been served, and the cook 

 has retired to appropriate to his own use the 

 remnants of the feast. The whisky flask and 

 sparklets bottle repose upon the folding table, 

 fast growing damp in the hea\y dew. The soft 

 African night encompasses us, and we feel it. 

 We sit back in our chairs, gazing dreamily upward 

 at the star-studded vault, filled to the brim with 

 unspeakable contentment. Brushed away, left 

 far behind, are the worries and cares of the life 

 of cities. We feel, without knowing it, that we are 

 very near to-night to that imiversal mother earth 

 from which we have all sprung — ^that good 

 mother who is ever waiting to take us again to 

 her great maternal bosom. We are unconsciously 

 communing with that majestic mystery Nature, 

 feeling unusually chastened, small, inconspicuous, 

 unimportant. 



Leaving the forest country, there are several 

 very mountainous districts, such as Morambala, 

 Chiperoni, the broken, rocky Pinda district, and, 

 finest of all, majestic ^Danje, that splendid barrier 

 which looks down for many miles upon the Anglo- 

 Portuguese frontier of our colony of Nyasaland. 

 Mlanje is a vast mass of granite, the highest peak 



