I Sat There For Some Time Hugging My Knees, Waiting For The Men
To Come.
The tremendous landscape seemed to have been willed to
immobility.
The rain squalls forty miles or more away did not
appear to shift their shadows; the rare slanting bands of light
from the clouds were as constant as though they were falling
through cathedral windows. But nearer at hand other things were
forward. The birds, thousands of them, were doing their best to
cheer things up. The roucoulements of doves rose from the bushes
down the face of the cliffs; the bell bird uttered his clear
ringing note; the chime bird gave his celebrated imitation of a
really gentlemanly sixty-horse power touring car hinting you out
of the way with the mellowness of a chimed horn; the bottle bird
poured gallons of guggling essence of happiness from his silver
jug. From the direction of camp, evidently jumped by the boys, a
steinbuck loped gracefully, pausing every few minutes to look
back, his dainty legs tense, his sensitive ears pointed toward
the direction of disturbance.
And now, along the face of the cliff, I make out the flashing of
much movement, half glimpsed through the bushes. Soon a fine
old-man baboon, his tail arched after the dandified fashion of
the baboon aristocracy stepped out, looked around, and bounded
forward. Other old men followed him, and then the young men, and
a miscellaneous lot of half-grown youngsters. The ladies brought
up the rear, with the babies.
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