482 



A NATURALIST'S WANDERINGS 



gained the last height, looking down on Dilly and the familiar 

 island-dotted scene, and reached the Palace at eight o'clock, 

 where I was thankful to find A. amid our kind friends much 

 recovered, but showing in her emaciated figure how severe her 

 sufferings had been. When the trying strain she was exposed 

 to and her terrible position and privations are realised, it ia 

 surprising not that she at last broke down, but that she bore 

 up so long and so bravely. From her journal, which she had 

 struggled to keep, I have extracted a few entries, commencing 

 some days after my departure. 



How exceedingly still it is \ Birds now come and perch 

 on the very rail of the verandah — lovely little things which we 

 could get only a glimpse of before ; and in the near vicinity 

 the Gamnt^bird practises its notes, to whose clear crescendo I 

 listen with rapt attention. Towards evening I look, eagerly 

 even, for my little woman. The first time I saw her she was 

 sitting under the sloping roof of her hut, devouring an unripe 

 mango, and I stayed to look twice to be sure that she was 

 really human. And this is my sole eompanion, for whoso 

 return I long ! I am trying to pick up from her some words 

 of her language ; in exchange I was going to teach her 

 civilised ways. Peeling too weak to brush my hair, and 

 thinking it would be delightful to have again that little 

 attention, I showed her how I mshed it done — by quick, firm 

 strokes* She nodded assent, and took the brush ; but, alas for 

 my hoi^es^ — she vigorously imitated my action — with the back 

 of the brash!" 



[Other visitors than birds came about her dwelling^ for] 

 " A wild-looking man from the mountains came past, and, 

 evidently struck by the novel-looking hut, with its appurte- 

 nances of civilisation and its white inhabitant, he stayed to 

 satisfy his curiosity, and, after going round to look at everj^- 

 thing, he lay down on the verandah to stare at me " ; [and] "last 

 evening at sundown my quiet was disturbed by the advent of 

 ft nnmljer of mountain men, who, after coolly monopolising my 

 fireplace to roast tlieir supper of maize at, spread themselves to 

 sleep on my verandah. It was gorgeous moonlight ; and, as I 

 was very wakeful and restless, I rose to look at the group in 

 deej> uleep around me. What a very strange experience for an 

 unprotected woman, in a doorlesn hiit .nn a Itniely hill side, tliiis 



