grew all about us; the breeze wandered lazily up from the distant
Indian Ocean. Directly before our tent door the slope fell gently away
through a sparse cocoanut grove whose straight stems panelled our view,
then rose again to the clear-cut outline of a straight ridge opposite.
The crest of this was sentinelled by tall scattered cocoanut trees, the
"bursting star" pyrotechnic effect of their tops being particularly fine
against the sky.

After a five hours' tropical march uphill we were glad to sit under our
green dome, to look at our view, to enjoy the little breeze, and to
drink some of the cocoanuts our friends the villagers brought in.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] "The Land of Footprints."




X.

THE SABLE.


About three o'clock I began to feel rested and ambitious. Therefore I
called up our elegant guide and Memba Sasa, and set out on my first hunt
for sable. F. was rather more done up by the hard morning, and so did
not go along. The guide wore still his red tarboosh, his dark short
jacket, his saffron yellow nether garment--it was not exactly a
skirt--and his silver-headed rattan cane. The only change he made was to