CHAPTER XVII 
TREE CLIMBING 
Do^not give dalliance too much the rein 
The Tempest 
When out early one morning a green oasis tempted 
me to leave the sandy waste and ramble in among the 
depths of the aloes, creep in and out of the festoons 
of armo, and hunt for anything that might be astir. 
Choosing the part where the bushes seemed most 
willing to admit us, we crept in — a hunter and I — he 
of the Cook’s Guide turn of mind. Parting the creepers 
as we went, we found it easier than we had thought to 
penetrate the density. 
On almost every branch a chameleon lay basking, 
dead to all appearances save for the eternal wake- 
fulness of their eyes. In a glade where the grass 
grew high there was a whirr and a rush. Some small 
animal was startled. But we saw nothing. The 
hunter prepared to account for it, but I would have 
none of it, and silenced him with a look. I was there 
to read the book of the wild for myself, not to have it 
read aloud. 
A tree snake dropped from his low perch on a thorn 
bush, and wriggled away in the thicket. Two dis- 
tinct lines of brown marked him, and that was all 
I saw. He gave me “ creeps,” and I turned away in 
