I 
TOOTHACHE, NECESSITY OF MENTAL WORK 149 
the toads, and from the forest come harsh and terrif5nng 
cries of all sorts. Caramba, my faithful dog, growls 
gently on the verandah, to let me know that he is there, 
and at my feet, under the table, lies a small dwarf 
antelope. In this solitude I try to set in order thoughts 
which have been stirring in me since 1900, in the hope 
of giving some little help to the restoration of civilisa- 
tion. Solitude of the primeval forest, how can I ever 
thank you enough for what you have been to me ? . . . 
The hour between lunch and the resumption of work 
in the hospital is given to music, as is also Sunday 
afternoon, and here, too, I feel the blessing of working 
" far from the madding crowd,” for there are many of 
J. S. Bach’s organ pieces into the meaning of which I 
can now enter with greater ease and deeper appreciation 
than ever before. 
Mental work one must have, if one is to keep one’s 
self in moral health in Africa ; hence the man of ' 
culture, though it may seem a strange thing to say, can 
stand life in the forest better than the uneducated man, 
because he has a means of recreation of which the other 
knows nothing. When one reads a good book on a 
serious subject one is no longer the creature that has 
been exhausting itself the whole day in the contest with 
the unreliability of the natives and the tiresome worry 
of the insects ; one becomes once more a man ! Woe 
to him who does not in some such way pull himself 
together and gather new strength ; the terrible prose 
of African life will bring him to ruin ! Not long ago I 
had a visit from a white timber merchant, and when I 
accompanied him to the canoe on his departure I asked 
him whether I could not provide him with something to 
read on the two days’ journey in front of him. “ Many 
