150 Wanderings in Eastern Africa. 
pain ; triumphs and disappointment follow each other 
in rapid succession ; and for the time you forget that 
you are alone. This, however, presently passes away, 
and the feeling of exile creeps over you once more. 
Now and then we have had a visit from our own 
countrymen. This has occurred thrice during a 
period of ten years. Such times have, indeed, been 
red-letter days in our experience. As " iron sharpen- 
eth iron, so doth the countenance of a man that of 
his friend." To look once more upon a white face 
and the old type of features, to listen to your own 
language, to hear the news from those fresh from the 
scene of action, and to go on conversing and ex- 
changing sentiments for hours upon all that one has 
ever held dear, is an indescribable pleasure. The 
experience is almost worth being purchased by a few 
years of banishment. 
But sometimes we have had visitors of a less 
pleasant kind. On one occasion our loneliness was 
broken in upon by the arrival of a madman (a native) 
from a distant part of the country. He had taken it 
into his head that he should like to see the white 
man. He made his appearance first by daylight. 
He was very wild and frantic. After performing 
some most extraordinary antics and freaks he took 
his departure at sundown. He had not, however, 
done with us. Just as we had retired to rest for the 
night he returned and rapped us up. He was in a 
state of greater frenzy than ever. The moon was 
high- in the heavens, and at the sight of that luminary 
the poor fellow became furious. He pointed at it, 
made horrible faces at it, placed himself in the attitude 
of drawing a bow, pulling home an imaginary string. 
