> . 
110 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
repose, I heard the rain beginning to pat down on my tent 
in great drops, while the rising wind soughed mournfully ~ 
through the neighbouring trees; but this dismal state of 
the weather outside only accentuated the sense of comfort 
and security within the snug tent, and I was quietly 
falling asleep in a self-satisfied mood, when suddenly the 
wind rose like an angry devil, and puff! my tent was 
whipped up over my head, and laid flat on the ground a 
few yards off. In a second all was changed, and I was 
being brusquely awakened from my reverie, and half- 
drowned by the drenching rain, which was mercilessly 
streaming down on all my treasures. My bed-clothes — 
were soaked, my novel—l remember it was Alphonse 
Daudet’s ‘Les Rois en exil’—-was reduced in no time to 
yellow pap, everything was going to ruin and dissolution 
-—the rain even beat the oround up into thick mud which — 
engulfed most of the smaller articles ; and all this time I 
was too paralysed by the sudden shock and the cold 
douche of rain to call for help. At last, however, I found 
my breath, and applied it lustily to a small whistle round 
my neck. Ina minute the Zanzibaris had rushed from 
an adjoiing cottage, and seizing me up in their arms, 
carried me swiftly into shelter. Here, by the side of a 
blazing fire, I dried myself and my bed-clothes, and slept — 
soundly on a native bed of matting. It was really 
wonderful the number of things that were saved from the 
wrecked tent and dried by the fire, and my losses were 
limited to the novel afore described, and some trifling 
odds and ends too mixed up with the mud to be detected. 
However, in future I always endeavoured when passing 
the night in a native village to borrow a house to sleep in. 
It is much more comfortable than sleeping in a tent, as 
you have greater space and freer ventilation, a tent always 
being abominably hot and close, whereas the chinks 
between the matting in the sides of the house allow of a 
thorough circulation of air. Then, too, the roof is rain-— 
tight, and cannot, except in very rare circumstances, be 
blown away by the wind, and you have a perfectly dry 
and hardened floor. 
