176 
TRAVELS IN CENTRAL AFRICA. 
A bowl of milk was brought to us^ and gratefully drinking it, we 
prepared for rest. 
August 2nd . — How welcome was the dawn ! It had been im- 
possible to sleep. What with the bellowing of oxen, the bleating 
of goats, and the irritating sting of insects, a more wretched night 
for our first bivouac could hardly be imagined. 
In the saddle at sunrise. The negro cattle-herders, some fifty, 
behaved with politeness — no rude staring or intrusion of any de- 
scription, and yet I must be an object strange to them. 
Ringa, the Neam Neam, told us that he had on the march last 
night been followed by a hyaena. He was last in the rear, and was 
foot-sore and weary. He, however, kept the animal at bay, pointing 
the gun which he carried at the beast. He was afraid to fire, not 
Avell understanding the weapon, but he expresses his determination 
to learn. For a short distance mud was waded through, my horse 
Luxor objecting to it very strongly; but he follows well where 
Petherick^s well-made cob Arab^^ leads. A forest was entered, 
the sun rose grandly, forgotten was the nighPs discomfort, as we 
hailed the lovely prospect. The air was redolent of perfume from 
fragrant trees. Amongst them was one like our own dear hawthorn, 
with its pink and white bloom. Then a variety of mimosa, one 
bearing feathery tassels like the larch ; these were alternately pink 
and yellow, and white and yellow. Cactus, of a height from twenty- 
five to thirty feet, not yet in bloom, presented a fine appearance ; and 
there was a tall and far-branching tree with leaves of the darkest 
green, at the root of which sprouted the new growth — a delicate 
green, such as our firs present in the spring-time ; lovely creepers, 
their graceful tendrils festooned from tree to tree ; bright plumaged 
birds and butterflies flitted about ; the trumpet bird, or, properly 
