African Camp Fires by Stewart Edward White
page 141 of 268 (52%)
page 141 of 268 (52%)
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desert here was exactly like the scrub desert for the last sixty miles.
The next morning we were up and off before sunrise. In this job time was a very large element of the contract. We must find our fringe-eared oryx before our water supply gave out. Therefore we had resolved not to lose a moment. The sunrise was most remarkable--lace work, flat clouds, with burnished copper-coloured clouds behind glowing through the lace. We admired it for some few moments. Then one of us happened to look higher. There, above the sky of the horizon, apparently suspended in mid-air half-way to the zenith, hung like delicate bubbles the double snow-cloud peaks of Kilimanjaro. Between them and the earth we could apparently see clear sky. It was in reality, of course, the blue-heat haze that rarely leaves these torrid plains. I have seen many mountains in all parts of the world, but none as fantastically insubstantial; as wonderfully lofty; as gracefully able to yield, before clouds and storms and sunrise glows, all the space in infinity they could possibly use, and yet to tower above them serene in an upper space of its own. Nearly every morning of our journey to come we enjoyed this wonderful vision for an hour or so. Then the mists closed in. The rest of the day showed us a grayish sky along the western horizon, with apparently nothing behind it. In the meantime we were tramping steadily ahead over the desert; threading the thorn scrub, crossing the wide shallow grass-grown swales; spying about us for signs of game. At the end of three or four miles we came across some ostrich and four hartebeeste. This encouraged us to think we might find other game soon, for the hartebeeste is a gregarious animal. Suddenly we saw a medium-sized squat beast that none of us recognized, trundling along like a badger sixty yards ahead. Any |
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