“I have come to look for thee, thou sluggard,” said he boisterously. “Wilt thou keep us waiting for ever?” “I am going to find our landlord, that I may pay him for our lodgings,” I replied, but at that moment the man himself appeared and saluted me civilly. I thanked him (in Hausa--which he did not understand) for the loan of his house, and presented him with a handful of cowries, which he received with lively tokens of gratitude, and as Aminé was now waiting with our entire effects upon her head, we made our way to the river, picking up Osman and Baku on the way. We forded the Tain without difficulty, for there was barely four feet of water in the middle, the river being now at its lowest; but the high, steep banks showed us what a volume it swelled to in the wet season, and we saw that, had we been a month later, it would have been quite impassable. For we were now at the very end of the dry season, and, indeed, one or two showers had fallen while we were at Banda. The track along which we travelled became more and more obscure as we went on, but Osman picked his way along it with the confidence of a skilled path-finder. I noted, however, with some concern, that in spite of his promise that we should keep to the more open orchard-country, we were already entering the outskirts of the forest. Another thing I noticed before we had been long on the road, and that was that we had evidently crossed a water-parting, for the brooks and little streams that we forded in the early part of the day all ran towards the north-east, evidently going to join the Tain, but about midday we began to meet tiny streams meandering away to the south-west; and in the afternoon we crossed a more considerable--though still small--river, three times in rapid succession, after which it turned westward, and we saw it no more. About an hour after we had crossed this river the sky became suddenly overcast, and the chill of approaching rain was sensible in the air, while the forest was filled with the strange continuous murmur of moving leaves that foretells a storm. We had passed no village or sign of habitation since leaving the Tain, and Osman assured us that we should meet with none until late on the morrow. “Wherefore,” said he, “we had better make ourselves a shelter against the storm as quickly as we can.” On hearing this we lost no time, but forthwith set about collecting the necessary materials, the minstrels and I cutting long sticks for the framework, while Aminé, armed with one of my knives, mowed down the high elephant grass of the opening in which we were to camp, thus at once clearing a space for the huts, and accumulating a pile of cut grass with which to thatch them. We worked with such a will that in less than an hour we had two tiny wigwam-like huts erected in the middle of the opening, where, if they were more exposed to the rain, they were safe from the principal danger--that of falling trees.