THE JUKGLE FIRE. 163 



bling, importunate, and greedy specimens of the genus 

 homo, species Africanus, as I have ever seen, even 

 amongst the "sons of water " in the canoes of Ujijh 

 In these lands, however, the traveller who cannot utilise 

 the raw material that comes to hand will make but 

 little progress. 



On the 2nd June we fell into our former route at 

 Jambeho, in the alluvial valley of the Malagarazi River. 

 The party was pitched in two places by the mismanage- 

 inent of Said bin Salim ; already the porters began to 

 raise loud cries of Posho ! (pro vaunt !) and their dread 

 of the Wavinza increased as they approached the 

 Malagarazi Ferry. The land in the higher levels was 

 already drying up, the vegetation had changed from 

 green to yellow, and the strips of grassy and tree-clad 

 rock, buttressing the left bank of the river, afforded 

 those magnificent spectacles of conflagration which have 

 ever been favourite themes with the Indian muse : — 



" silence profound 

 Enwraps the forest, save where bubbling springs 

 Gush from the rock, or where the echoing hills 

 Give back the tiger's roar, or where the boughs 

 Burst into crackling flame and wide extends 

 The blaze the Dragon's fiery breath has kindled." 



Wilson's Uttara Rama Cheritra, act 2. 



A sheet of flame, beginning with the size of a spark, 

 overspread the hill-side, advancing on the wings of the 

 wind, with the roaring rushing sound of many hosts 

 where the grass lay thick, shooting huge forky tongues 

 high into the dark air, where tail trees, the patriarchs 

 of the forest, yielded their lives to the blast, smouldering 

 and darkening, as if about to be quenched where the 

 rock afforded scanty fuel, then flickering, blazing up 

 and soaring again till topping the brow of the hill, the 

 sheet became a thin line of fire 5 and gradually vanished 



M 2 



