Our experiences on the homeward journey were much the same, although we took a less circuitous route. Almost without exception, we got soaked through and through twice daily: first with the heavy dews, which necessitated a mid-day halt and change if malaria was to be avoided, then again, in the afternoon came the rains, which fell regularly from 1.0 p.m. and onwards. Our first thing on reaching camp was to have a large fire kindled and all our wardrobe hung round to dry, singe, or stiffen. Our boots suffered terribly—and so did we when we struggled into them each morning. One day, after five hours’ marching, the thunderclouds came tumbling together and sent down torrents of rain. We tried to squeeze up under a tree, but this soon offered no shelter, and even our mackintoshes could resist the water no longer. It was impossible to cook any food as the fire would not light; meanwhile our thirst became tragic, until the idea occurred to us of standing under each other’s umbrella and quaffing the streams that ran from the spokes! Hunger at last drove us on toward camp, despite the rain, but the roads required one to be rough shod. Faithful Apolo insisted on grabbing my arm with such a grip that when it finally lost all power of feeling, a row of bruises presented themselves to prove the conflict passed through. For a whole week we had been passing elephant tracks, which the porters declared were quite freshly made, but once only were we fortunate enough to see these magnificent monsters. At mid-day the porters had spied three some distance off, slowly tramping along in the tall grass, but we only saw their heads and tops of their backs. At 5.30 p.m., however, that same day, a herd of fifteen passed comparatively close to us. In single file they solemnly marched over the brow of a hill, silhouetted against a gorgeous sky. A yell from one of the porters brought their heads round in our direction, when we saw that five had immense tusks. It was an imposing sight, the whole was so perfectly harmonious; there is something vast, untrammelled—a strange abandonment and magnanimity of nature in scenes like this, that even an Englishman must feel small! Antelopes, birds, and butterflies of the most brilliant colouring abounded in these parts, and these make up for the less attractive shades of an African tramp. We arrived home very much braced up (the malarial germs had not a chance of settling down), and feeling that we had perhaps been enabled to accomplish something toward the carrying out of the marching order, “Go ye into all the world.” CHAPTER XIV Tramp II. Holidays