276 
IN AFRICA 
tal of our slaughter and when the army marched 
back into camp with its one little grouse the effect 
was laughable in the extreme. I took a photograph 
of the entire group and by good luck the grouse is 
faintly seen suspended in the middle. 
That night, with the camp-fires burning and with 
our tents almost buried in the tall grass, we cele¬ 
brated Thanksgiving in a way that must have made 
old Lucullus fidget in his mausoleum. The wealth 
of the plains was compelled to yield tribute to our 
table; eland, grouse and Uganda cob appeared and 
disappeared as if by magic; the vast storehouses 
of Europe and America poured their treasures 
upon our groaning board, and one by one we 
safely put away succulent lengths of asparagus, 
cakes and chocolate, wine and olives, pickles and 
honey, nuts and cheese, plum pudding and coffee, 
and soup and salad, all in their proper sequence and 
in sufficient quantities to go round and round. 
A soft moon shone down from the velvet sky and 
the trees of the river bed were bathed in white moon¬ 
light as we sat by the great camp-fire and smoked 
and talked and dreamed of the folk at home. 
It was an unusual occasion, one that called for a 
special dispensation in the way of late hours, so it 
was almost nine when we turned in and dreamed of 
armies of rhinos playing battledore and shuttlecock 
with our bulging forms. It was a great dinner, 
and to be on the safe side we complimented the cook 
before we went to bed. 
A day or two later, after blindly floundering 
