I awoke in the morning to find the gyassa[#] moored off the base camp of Major Peake’s sudd-cutting expedition. Close by lay a trim, smart-looking gun-boat. AH was bustle and stir on board, and it was obvious that they were getting up steam. I drank in the sight, momentarily expecting to see it fade before my eyes, and to find myself once more wearily plodding through those maddening swamps. The transition from ceaseless anxiety and hungry misery to full-bellied content and tobacco-soothed repose had been so sudden; I was as a man who, after long time staggering in the dark, is suddenly thrust into the full glare of sunlight, and could hardly grasp that it was at last all over. Nothing to do but sit and be carried along towards clean shirts, collars, glasses, friends--all that makes life a thing of joy. How many people realize what all these things mean? How many people have ever caught the exquisite flavour of bread-and-butter? the restful luxury of clean linen? the hiss of Schweppe’s? One must munch hippo-meat alone, save one’s sole shirt from contact with water as from a pestilence lest it fall to pieces, and drink brackish mud for days, to realize all this. Sensations are but contrasts, and in the strong picture contrasts must be strong. We all have our allotted portions of black and white paint; how we lay it on is a question of temperament. One mixes the pigments carefully and paints his life an even grey. Another dashes in the light and shade with a palette-knife. Such an one is the wanderer in strange climes. [#] Nile sailing-boat.