In about ten minutes I reached the base of the hill, which was, as I had hoped from its appearance, a mass of bare rock spotted with patches of scanty vegetation. I walked round to the easiest slope, which I proceeded to ascend, and in a few minutes I reached a surface so hard and devoid of soil that my feet left not the slightest impression. Here I slipped my feet into Aminé’s sandals, and looking over my shoulder at the last of my tracks, commenced to carefully walk backwards, turning my toes slightly inwards as Aminé did, and following in this laborious and tedious fashion, the line of footprints that marked the way I had come, until I at length arrived at the stream, and walked backwards into the water. The result was perfect, for there now stretched away from the river a double line of footprints identical in character with those that Aminé and I had left on our way from the camp; and these illusive tracks disappeared in an entirely natural manner on the rocky surface of the hill. Aminé gave a little shriek of astonishment as I came down into the stream in this unusual manner. “What is amiss with thee, Yúsufu?” she exclaimed, “that thou walkest backwards like an ant-lion?” But when I pointed out the tracks she at once understood my ruse, and sat down again, laughing heartily. “Thou art as cunning as an old monkey,” she declared. As we were both too tired to attempt a journey in a new direction, and were, moreover, quite ignorant of the locality, I considered that it would be safest to conceal ourselves in the neighbourhood of the stream until we judged that the search was over, and I now began to look about for some suitable hiding place. One of the first objects that attracted my attention was a large odúm tree that stood on the bank of the stream close to the ford. It had once been a noble tree, but had either been struck by lightning or by a tornado, for its upper half had fallen, and lay, a decaying mass, on the ground, and its trunk was covered with a network of the curious little earthen tunnels of the white ants, which ran from the ground to the splintered extremity, showing that some part of the upper portion was dead. From this I inferred that there was probably a hollow space at the summit of the broken trunk, where the dead wood had been eaten out by the white ants, and if this were so, it would furnish an ideal hiding place, provided we could reach it. The latter difficulty was to a great extent solved by a large monkey-rope, as thick as my arm, which had hung down from one of the top branches, and which in the fall of the upper part of the trunk, had become caught across the broken end, from which it drooped in a great bight or festoon down to the ground and again up a neighbouring tree.