Naked women, of the same reddish-brown colouring as the rocks, their heads ornamented with amber, were everywhere washing _pagnes_, and excitedly recounting the events and combats of the night. Warriors armed to the teeth were fording the stream on their way to battle. * * * * * Jean took his first walk around the village, whither his new fate had brought him for an indefinite period. There was certainly trouble brewing, and the little post of Gadiangué foresaw a time when it would be obliged to close its doors to allow the negro communities time to settle their own affairs—as one closes one’s windows during a passing shower. But in all this there was movement, vitality, originality even to excess. There were forests, verdure, flowers, mountains, running water—awe-inspiring, natural splendour. There was no element of gloom in it, and it was all new and strange. From the distance comes the sound of the tom-tom, the warlike music draws nearer, until it is close at hand and deafeningly loud. The women at their washing by the clear stream, and Jean himself, raise their heads and look up into the blue space framed in polished rock. An allied chief is passing by overhead with his fighting men, scrambling with monkey-like agility over the trunks of fallen trees. He proceeds on his way with pomp, with music heading the procession.... The arms and amulets of the warriors in his train glitter in the sun, as they file past with swift, light step, in the overwhelming heat. It is almost noon when Jean climbs back along the green paths to the village. The huts of Gadiangué are grouped together in the shade of great trees. They are of a good height, and have almost a certain elegance, with their high pitched roofs of thatch. Women are sleeping on mats on the ground; others, seated on the verandahs, are soothing small children with long-drawn lullabies. And warriors, armed to the teeth, recount to one another their exploits of the previous night as they wipe their big iron knives. * * * * * No. Certainly, there is no element of melancholy in all this. The intensely hot air is terribly heavy, but it has not the overwhelmingly depressing quality of the air on the banks of the Senegal, and the vital, equatorial sap circulates through everything. Jean looks around him and feels alive. He is not sorry now to have come. He has never imagined anything to equal this. Later, when he has returned to his home, he will be glad that he has set foot in this distant region, and he will look back on it with pleasure. He regards this sojourn in the Ouankarah as a spell of freedom spent in a wonderful hunting country, clad with verdure and forests. It seems to him a period of respite from the terribly monotonous existence, the deadly routine of life in exile. XXVIII