three-eighths of an inch across was oblong in shape and of pure
glittering gold. His wing covers, on the other hand, were round and
transparent. The effect was of a jewel under a tiny glass case. Other
beetles were of red dotted with black, or of black dotted with red; they
sported stripes, or circles of plain colours; they wore long, slender
antennae, or short knobby horns; they carried rapiers or pinchers, long
legs or short. In fact they ran the gamut of grace and horror, so that
an inebriate would find here a great rest for the imagination.

After we had gone to bed we noticed more pleasantly our cricket. He
piped up, you may remember, the night of the first great storm. That
evening he took up his abode in some fold or seam of our tent, and there
stayed throughout all the rest of the journey. Every evening he tuned up
cheerfully, and we dropped to sleep to the sound of his homelike piping.
We grew very fond of him, as one does of everything in this wild and
changing country that can represent a stable point of habitude.

Nor must I forget one evening when all of a sudden out of the darkness
came a tremendous hollow booming, like the beating of war drums or the
bellowing of some strange great beast. At length we identified the
performer as an unfamiliar kind of frog!




XXXI.

THE LOST SAFARI.