AFRICAN TRAVEL. 



141 



and even enthusiasm. Moreover, no hours are 

 more fraught with smiling recollections to the 

 author : nothing can be more charming than the 

 contrast between his vantage ground of present 

 ease, as he takes up his pen at home, and that past 

 perspection of want, hardships, and accidents upon 

 which he gazes through the softening, beautify- 

 ing atmosphere of time. And the animus of the 

 writer must to some extent inspire his readers. 



We arose early in the morning after making 

 Panga-ni, and repaired to the terrace for the bet- 

 ter enjoyment of the view. The river- vista, with 

 cocoa avenues to the north, with yellow cliffs 

 on the southern side, some 40 feet high, abrupt 

 as those of the Indus, and green clad above ; 

 with a distance of plum-blue hill, upon which eye 

 and mind both love to rest ; the mobile swelling 

 water bounded by strips of emerald verdure and 

 golden sand, and the still and azure sea dotted 

 with ' diabolitos,' little black rocks, not improperly 

 called ' devilings,' wanted nothing but the finish 

 and polish of art to bring out the infinite variety, 

 the rude magnificence of nature. A few grey 

 ruins upon the hills would enable it to compare 

 with the most admired prospects of the Rhine, 

 without looking as if it had been made pictur- 

 esque by contrast, to attract tourists, and with 



