Well "When Ignorance Is Bliss
'tis Folly To Be Wise," Particularly Along Here.
I get up without
delay, and find myself quite well.
The cat has thrown a basin of
water neatly over into my bag during her nocturnal hunts; and when
my tea comes I am informed a man "done die" in the night, which
explains the firing of guns I heard. I inquire what he has died of,
and am told "He just truck luck, and then he die." His widows are
having their faces painted white by sympathetic lady friends, and
are attired in their oldest, dirtiest clothes, and but very few of
them; still, they seem to be taking things in a resigned spirit.
These Ajumba seem pleasant folk. They play with their pretty brown
children in a taking way. Last night I noticed some men and women
playing a game new to me, which consisted in throwing a hoop at each
other. The point was to get the hoop to fall over your adversary's
head. It is a cheerful game. Quantities of the common house-fly
about - and, during the early part of the morning, it rains in a
gentle kind of way; but soon after we are afloat in our canoe it
turns into a soft white mist.
We paddle still westwards down the broad quiet waters of the O'Rembo
Vongo. I notice great quantities of birds about here - great
hornbills, vividly coloured kingfishers, and for the first time the
great vulture I have often heard of, and the skin of which I will
take home before I mention even its approximate spread of wing.
There are also noble white cranes, and flocks of small black and
white birds, new to me, with heavy razor-shaped bills, reminding one
of the Devonian puffin.
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