IX. CHRISTMAS, 1915 
150 
thanks,” he replied, ” but I am already supplied,” and 
he showed me, lying on the thwart of the boat, a book, 
which was Jacob Boehme’s ” Aurora.” The work of 
the great German shoemaker and mystic, written at 
the beginning of the seventeenth century, accompanies 
him on all his journeys. We know how nearly all 
great African travellers have taken with them solid 
matter for reading. 
* 
* * 
Newspapers one can hardly bear to look at. The 
printed string of words, written with a view to the 
single, quickly-passing day, seems here, where time is, 
so to say, standing still, positively grotesque. Whether 
we will or no, all of us here live under the influence of 
the daily repeated experience that nature is everything 
and man is nothing. This brings into our general view 
of life — and this even in the case of the less educated — 
something which makes us conscious of the feverishness 
and vanity of the hfe of Europe ; it seems almost 
something abnormal that over a portion of the earth’s 
surface nature should be nothing and man every- 
thing ! 
News of the war comes here fairly regularly. Either 
from N’Djole, through which passes the main tele- 
graph line from Libreville to the interior, or from Cape 
Lopez, telegraphic news comes to us every fortnight, a 
selection from the various daily items. It is sent by 
the District Commandant to the stores and the two 
mission stations by means of a native soldier, who waits 
till we have read it and give it back to him. Then for 
another fortnight we think of the war only in the most 
