156 
THE KILIMA-NJABO EXPEDITION. 
many women have brought bundles of firewood, so 
neatly done up and chopped into such handy logs that, 
although it seems superfluous to buy it, when one 
man’s mission in the station is to collect nothing else 
in the woods all day long, yet it is sold so cheaply, 
and is so conveniently ready for use, that I often 
purchase it, and feel by so doing that I am en¬ 
couraging the enterprise and spirit of my black 
neighbours. 
After lunch I sit for an hour or two skinning birds; 
then, when the afternoon sun is declining, I set out 
for another ramble. Perhaps before starting I sip a 
welcome cup of tea in the natural arbour behind my 
house. Then taking my sketch-book, I wander forth 
in delicious aimlessness, now stopping to sketch a 
distant view of Mandara’s village, seen from the head 
of our ravine, now scrambling up a bracken-covered 
liill-side in almost wild exuberance of spirits. “ How 
happy life seems here,” I stop and reflect to myself, 
as, my face all aglow with the flush of exercise, I rest 
awhile, seated on some grassy mound at the summit 
of the hill, and looking down on my busy settlement 
beneath, where the men at work are so many ants 
creeping two and fro, my gardens are green patches, 
and my houses might be the tiny habitations of leaves 
and twigs which some species of ants are wont to 
construct. Whilst I am gazing over this most varied 
prospect—over the tiny beginnings of a colony on the 
hill below, over the many ridges of banana-covered 
hills beyond, and further away the illimitable plains 
marked and patterned like a carpet with patches of 
purple forest, streaks of yellow sand, red hillocks, 
and pale green savannahs—a slight noise behind me 
attracts my attention, and I look round to find a 
