MIDNIGHT VISITOR. 



97 



ized visitors. The Bushmen are more expert in handling their 

 peculiar weapons, because they have had long training ; but if 

 it is a question of coolness, of quietly approaching a fresh 

 strong elephant, the civilized man always astonishes the native 

 by his apparent recklessness. Indeed, it seems to be the testi- 

 mony of history that pure courage is in the ratio of moral 

 culture. Animals lower than man, and savage men, may be 

 ferocious ; civilized man presents the noblest models of courage. 

 Spending a Sunday at Maila, our party passed on, to be in- 

 vigorated by the freshness and lifefulness at Unku. We may 

 imagine, if we can, the relief. For the dreary barrenness of 

 Koobe, there were now spread all around the tall grass waving 

 in the breezes like fields of golden grain, all the various flowers 

 blooming splendidly, and everywhere the twittering of birds 

 kept memorial of the rain which had revived the scene; while 

 the game, independent of mean wells, keeping a good distance, 

 despised the harmless guns of the invader. Surely it is almost 

 worth an experience in the desert to have the surprise and de- 

 light of coming again to a world of life and beauty and joy. But 

 it was hot. On the ground the thermometer marked 125° ! 

 The water, on the surface, stood at 100° ; dipped from the bot- 

 tom, it was pleasant. This was in March, 1853. Livingstone 

 had left Kuril man in November, and was now some six hundred 

 miles on his journey, though passing mainly through familiar 

 places. Passing on through a dense, bushy tract, cutting their 

 way with axes, the party were suddenly arrested by an enemy 

 ever lurking on the footsteps of travellers passing through this 

 region : four of the party were down with fever, which, in three 

 days, had seized every one of the party except one Bakwain and 

 Dr. Livingstone. While lying in this place nursing the sick, 

 one night a hyena appeared in the high grass, and frightened 

 the oxen so terribly that every one of them rushed away into 

 the forests. The trusty servant had followed them, and after an 

 absence of several days, with no other guide than his instinct, 

 came driving up the whole herd of forty oxen. The progress 

 now, burdened with the sick and annoyed with the convales- 

 cent, obliged to cut a way through the closely wedged trees, be- 

 came exceedingly laborious ; but good health backed the never- 

 flinching spirit of Livingstone. They were in the 18th degree of 



