CHAP. VIII.] 
REGAIN THE PARTY . 
233 
but I bad ridden about three miles, and it would be 
dark before I could return. However, I followed the 
heel tracks of the herd of giraffes. Eicharn was no¬ 
where. Although I had lost the race, and was dis¬ 
appointed, I now consoled myself that it was all for the 
best; had I killed a giraffe at that hour and distance 
from camp, what good would it have been ? I was 
quite alone, thus who could have found it during 
the night ? and before morning it would have been, 
devoured by lions and hyenas;—inoffensive and 
beautiful creatures, what a sin it appeared to destroy 
them uselessly! With these consoling and practical 
reflections I continued my way, until a branch of 
hooked thorn fixing in my nose disturbed the train of 
ideas and persuaded me that it was very dark, and that 
I had lost my way, as I could no longer distinguish 
either the tracks of the giraffes or the position of the 
mountains. Accordingly I fired my rifle as a signal, 
and soon after I heard a distant report in reply, and 
the blaze of a fire shot up suddenly in the distance on 
the side of the mountain. With the help of this beacon 
I reached the spot where our people were bivouacked; 
they had lighted the beacon on a rock about fifty feet 
above the level, as although some twenty or thirty fires 
were blazing, they had been obscured by the intervening 
jungle. I found both my wife and my men in an 
argumentative state as to the propriety of my remain¬ 
ing alone so late in the jungle; however, I also found 
dinner ready ; the angareps (stretcher bedsteads) 
arranged by a most comfortable blazing fire, and a 
glance at the star-lit heavens assured me of a fine 
night—what more can man wish for ?—wife, welcome, 
food, fire, and fine weather ? 
The bivouac in the wilderness has many charms; 
there is a complete independence—the sentries are 
posted, the animals picketed and fed, and the fires 
arranged in a complete circle around the entire party— 
men, animals, and luggage all within the fiery ring ; 
the sentries alone being on the outside. There is a 
