and sat there, fearlessly urging its strange steed to move on. The
parents gave way to cries of terror at seeing the apparent danger
to which their offspring were exposed. The little boy, however,
having slipped off the bear's back, the animal, hearing the sound
of other voices, left the children, and retreated quietly into the
forest.




SOME ANIMAL FRIENDS IN AFRICA

By Bayard Taylor


Years ago I spent a winter in Africa. I had intended to go up the
Nile only as far as Nubia, visiting the great temples and tombs of
Thebes on the way; but when I had done all this, and passed beyond
the cataracts at the southern boundary of Egypt, I found the
journey so agreeable, so full of interest, and attended with so
much less danger than I had supposed, that I determined to go on
for a month or two longer, and penetrate as far as possible into
the interior. Everything was favorable to my plan.

When I reached Khartoum, the Austrian consul invited me to his
house; and there I spent three or four weeks, in that strange town,
making acquaintance with the Egyptian officers, the chiefs of the
desert tribes and the former kings of the different countries of
Ethiopia. When I left my boat, on arriving, and walked through the
narrow streets of Khartoum, between mud walls, very few of which