There is no libel more grossly unfair than that which says the birds of
Africa have no song. The yellow weaver birds sing most beautifully, as
they fly from the feathery tops of the avenue of coconut palms that line
the road to the clump of bamboos behind the hospital.

But they fly there no longer now, for our colonel, in a spasm of
sanitation, cut down this graceful swaying clump of striped bamboos for
the fear that they harboured mosquitoes. As if these few canes mattered,
when our hospital was on the banks of the reed-fringed river. Morning
songsters with voices of English thrushes and robins wake one to gaze
upon the dawn through one's mosquito net. Small bird voices, like the
chiff-chaff in May, carry on the chorus until the sun rises. Then the
bird of delirium arrives and runs up the scale to a high monotonous note
that would drive one mad, were it not that he and the dove, with his
amphoric note, are Africa all over. A neat fawn-coloured bird this, with
a long tail and dark markings on his wings.

Then as the sun rises and the early morning heat dries up the song
birds' voices, the earth and the life of the palm trees drowse in the
sunshine.

But at night, from late afternoon to three in the morning, when the life
of trees and grasses and ponds ceases for a short while before it begins
again at dawn, the air is full of the busy voices of the insect world.
Until we came south to Morogoro, to the land of mangoes, coconut, palms,
bamboos, we had known the shrill voice of cicadas and the harsh metallic
noises of crickets in grass and trees. But here we made two new
acquaintances, and charming little voices they had too. One lived in the
grass and rose leaves of our garden, for the German blacksmith who
lately occupied our hospital building had planted his garden with