The Way The Water Rushes Down From The Mountain Wall
Through The Watercourses In The Jungle Just Above, And Then
At the
edge of the forest spreads out into a sheet of water that is an inch
deep, and that
Flies on past us in miniature cascades, trying the
while to put out our fire and so on, is - quite interesting. (I
exhausted my vocabulary on those boys yesterday.)
As soon as we saw what we were in for, we had thrown dry wood on to
the fire, and it blazed just as the rain came down, so with our
assistance it fought a good fight with its fellow elements, spitting
and hissing like a wild cat. It could have managed the water fairly
well, but the wind came, very nearly putting an end to it by
carrying away its protecting bough house, which settled on
"Professor" Kefalla, who burst out in a lecture on the foolishness
of mountaineering and the quantity of devils in this region. Just
in the midst of these joys another boy came through the bush with
another demijohn of water. We did not receive him even civilly; I
burst out laughing, and the boys went off in a roar, and we shouted
at him, "Where them chop?" "He live for come," said the boy, and we
then gave him a hearty welcome and a tot of rum, and an hour
afterwards two more boys appear, one carrying a sack of rice and
beef for the men, and the other a box for me from Herr Liebert,
containing a luxurious supply of biscuits, candles, tinned meats,
and a bottle of wine and one of beer.
We are now all happy, though exceeding damp, and the boys sit round
the fire, with their big iron pot full of beef and rice, busy
cooking while they talk. Wonderful accounts of our prodigies of
valour I hear given by Xenia, and terrible accounts of what they
have lived through from the others, and the men who have brought up
the demijohns and the chop recount the last news from Buea. James's
wife has run away again.
I have taken possession of two demijohns of water and the rum
demijohn, arranging them round the head of my bed. The worst of it
is those tiresome bees, as soon as the rain is over, come in
hundreds after the rum, and frighten me continually. The worthless
wretches get intoxicated on what they can suck from round the cork,
and then they stagger about on the ground buzzing malevolently.
When the boys have had the chop and a good smoke, we turn to and
make up the loads for to-morrow's start up the mountain, and then,
after more hot tea, I turn in on my camp bed - listening to the soft
sweet murmur of the trees and the pleasant, laughing chatter of the
men.
September 25th. - Rolled off the bed twice last night into the bush.
The rain has washed the ground away from under its off legs, so that
it tilts; and there were quantities of large longicorn beetles about
during the night - the sort with spiny backs; they kept on getting
themselves hitched on to my blankets and when I wanted civilly to
remove them they made a horrid fizzing noise and showed fight -
cocking their horns in a defiant way.
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