The Foregoing Dissertation Must
Be Considered Not As A Promise, But As An Explanation.
No one
knows better than I how limited my African experience is, both in
time and extent, bounded as it is by East Equatorial Africa and a
year.
Hundreds of men are better qualified than myself to write
just this book; but unfortunately they will not do it.
II. AFRICA
In looking back on the multitudinous pictures that the word
Africa bids rise in my memory, four stand out more distinctly
than the others. Strangely enough, these are by no means all
pictures of average country-the sort of thing one would describe
as typical. Perhaps, in a way, they symbolize more the spirit of
the country to me, for certainly they represent but a small
minority of its infinitely varied aspects. But since we must make
a start somewhere, and since for some reason these four crowd
most insistently in the recollection it might be well to begin
with them.
Our camp was pitched under a single large mimosa tree near the
edge of a deep and narrow ravine down which a stream flowed. A
semicircle of low mountains hemmed us in at the distance of
several miles. The other side of the semicircle was occupied by
the upthrow of a low rise blocking off an horizon at its nearest
point but a few hundred yards away. Trees marked the course of the
stream; low scattered bushes alternated with open plain. The
grass grew high.
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