222 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
control like a restless child, and then, wearied with its 
wilfulness, lets itself be slowly drawn in again to run its 
sober winter journey, so its tiny children, who have rioted | 
in all the exuberant excesses of spring and summer, need 
the repose of the slack months to restore their energies, 
The-birds put away their fine clothes, the “season” being 
over, and go into villéyiature in plain suits of every- 
day garments. The whydah-bird especially, who all the 
summer long was the veriest rake, and flaunted his long 
plumes wantonly before the eyes of his lady friends in a 
manner quite disastrous to their virtue, has now lost his 
good looks, and assumes the bearing of a cynic wearied 
with excess of love and easy conquests, dropping his 
beautiful deportment and 1ich dress, and assuming a 
costume that is strictly plain and almost shabby. He 
also has to economise for his past expenditure, but it is 
also with the view of having “another good time” by 
and by. ; 
Whether life’s cycle has had a beginning, and will have 
an end, we know not, but to our finite comprehension it 
seems eternal. Out of life comes death, which is inactivity, 
and out of this springs active life again. The perennials 
die down to their roots, exhausted with their late display 
of vigour, but when the returning rains once more soften 
and cool the dry, cracked soil, up spring the bright young 
shoots from the old stock to flourish anew and live their 
life. And if the annual dies, has it not scattered round it 
germs from which a hundred children rise to carry on its 
pedigree and spread its race? So, if there is a winter in 
Africa, there is also a spring, full of hope and promise and 
cheerful activity. The first rains are seldom violent or 
long-continued, but they effectually moisten the soil and 
cause the dried-up brooks to flow and the rivers to swell. 
Then a myriad flowers blow, the sternest, woodiest shrubs 
evince an unsuspected tenderness; spiteful euphorbias, 
prickly acacias, apopletic baobabs show that some poetic — 
feeling lurks beneath their forbidding exterior and finds 
a vent in innocent and fragrant blossoms. A wealth of 
colour fills the woods, the plain, the swamps, and even 
: 
‘ 
wa g 
he ae 
‘ a a 
3 A 
; ee “ 
\ Mor 
* ow. » " 
= eT Ae el 
