"Such," said Three o'clock the hunter, "is life in this continent with a caravan. One day we have a feast, and on the next the stomach is craving. Never are two days alike. The people will eat meat now until they are blind, and next month they will thank God if they get as much as a wood-bean." Saat Tato had discovered, like myself, that life in Africa consists of a series of varied sufferings with intervals of short pleasures. [Illustration: A VILLAGE OF THE BAVIRI: EUROPEANS TAILORING, ETC.] The cold was very great on this high land. Each night since we had entered the grass country we had been driven indoors near sunset by the raw misty weather of the evening, and we shivered with chattering teeth in the extreme chilliness of the young day. On this morning the temperature was at 59° Fahrenheit. The men were stark naked owing to the exactions and extortions of the Manyuema, and had taken kindly to the leather dresses of the natives, and the bark cloths worn by the aborigines of the forest. After experiencing the extremes of cold to which these open pasture-lands were subject, we no longer wondered at the tardiness shown by the inhabitants to venture out before nine o'clock, and it would have been manifest wisdom for us to have adopted their example, had our task permitted it. On the 19th December we struck across the rolling plains towards Mazamboni. As we came near Gavira's we were hailed by a group of natives, who shouted out, "The country lies at your feet now. You will not be interfered with any more; but you would please us well if you killed the chief of Undussuma, who sent us to drive you back." At noon, as we were abreast of the Balegga Hills, two parties of forty men each were observed to be following us. They hailed us finally, and expressed a wish to "look us in the face." As they declined the permission to approach us without arms, they were sharply ordered away, lest we should suspect them of sinister designs. They went away submissively. In the afternoon we came to the villages of those who had so persistently persecuted us on the 12th. The people were spread over the hills vociferating fiercely. The advance-guard were urged forward, and the hills were cleared, despite the storms of abuse that were poured out by the Balegga. A few of the captured cattle furnished milk. Our goats also gave an ample supply for tea and coffee, which we were bound to accept as evidence that the heart of Africa could supply a few comforts.