They Were Red, And Yellow And White
That Before Were Green, A Truly Gorgeous Sight.
Then we turned sharp to the right and began to ascend a little
tributary brook coming down the wide flats from a cleft in the
hills.
This was prettily named the Isiola, and, after the first
mile or so, was not big enough to afford the luxury of a jungle
of its own. Its banks were generally grassy and steep, its
thickets few, and its little trees isolated in parklike spaces.
To either side of it, and almost at its level, stretched plains,
but plains grown with scattered brush and shrubs so that at a
mile or two one's vista was closed. But for all its scant ten
feet of width the Isiola stood upon its dignity as a stream. We
discovered that when we tried to cross. The men floundered
waist-deep on uncertain bottom; the syces received much
unsympathetic comment for their handling of the animals, and we
had to get Billy over by a melodramatic "bridge of life" with B.,
F., myself, and Memba Sasa in the title roles.
Then we pitched camp in the open on the other side, sent the
horses back from the stream until after dark, in fear of the
deadly tsetse fly, and prepared to enjoy a good exploration of
the neighbourhood. Whereupon M'ganga rose up to his gaunt and
terrific height of authority, stretched forth his bony arm at
right angles, and uttered between eight and nine thousand
commands in a high dynamic monotone without a single pause for
breath.
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