At present, however, we are whirling away again through the lovely woodland, and the whole afternoon passes in an unbroken panorama of forest views, with great glades of meadow breaking away to right and left, and patches of maize and cotton suddenly interrupting the stately procession of timber. And then Jefferson. Is Jefferson more prettily situated than Marshall? I cannot say. But Jefferson lies back among the trees with an interval of orchard and corn-land between it and the railway line, and looks a very charming retreat indeed. A fat negro comes on board on duty of some kind connected with the brake, and a witty little half-breed boy comes on after him. The fat negro is the brown boy's butt. And he nearly bursts with wrath at the hybrid urchin's chaff, and threatens, between gasps, a retaliation that cannot find utterance in words. But the brown boy is relentless, and though the train is rapidly increasing in its speed, he clings to the step and taunts the negro who dare not leave his look-out post. But he knows very well where the fat man will get off, and suddenly, with a parting personality, the little wretch drops off the step, just as a ripe apple might drop off a branch. And then the fat man has to get off. The speed is really dangerous, but he climbs down the steps backwards, thinking apparently only of his tormentor, and still breathing forth fire and slaughter; and then lets go. Is he killed? Not a bit of it. He lands on his feet without apparently even jarring his obese person, and when we look back, we see that he is already throwing stones at the small boy, whose batteries are replying briskly. I wonder if the hippopotamus ever caught the flea? And if he did, what he did to him? And I remember how the Somali boys in Aden used to drive the bo'sun to the verge of despair by clambering on to the ship and pretending not to see him working his way round towards them with a rope's end behind his back, and how at the very last moment, almost as the arm was raised to strike, the young monkeys used to drop off backwards into the sea, like snails off a wall.