to be miraculously set at the familiar dinner-table for the purpose
of relating them. I do not want to convey any disrespectful notion or
slight when I call those good and learned men fossils, but my experience
is that people are apt to fossilise even at a University if they follow
the same paths too persistently. I was getting fossilised myself, but
of late my stock of ideas has been very much enlarged. Well, I lay and
reflected, and wondered what on earth would be the end of it all, till
at last I ceased to wonder, and went to sleep.

I suppose I must have slept for seven or eight hours, getting the first
real rest that I had had since the night before the loss of the
dhow, for when I woke the sun was high in the heavens. We were still
journeying on at a pace of about four miles an hour. Peeping out through
the mist-like curtains of the litter, which were ingeniously fixed to
the bearing pole, I perceived to my infinite relief that we had passed
out of the region of eternal swamp, and were now travelling over
swelling grassy plains towards a cup-shaped hill. Whether or not it was
the same hill that we had seen from the canal I do not know, and have
never since been able to discover, for, as we afterwards found out,
these people will give little information upon such points. Next I
glanced at the men who were bearing me. They were of a magnificent
build, few of them being under six feet in height, and yellowish in
colour. Generally their appearance had a good deal in common with that
of the East African Somali, only their hair was not frizzed up, but hung
in thick black locks upon their shoulders. Their features were aquiline,
and in many cases exceedingly handsome, the teeth being especially
regular and beautiful. But notwithstanding their beauty, it struck me
that, on the whole, I had never seen a more evil-looking set of faces.
There was an aspect of cold and sullen cruelty stamped upon them
that revolted me, and which in some cases was almost uncanny in its