Shortly after this a drenching rain fell, a tropical downpour, that wet us to the skin. In this rain we stood and ate our first lunch, some fresh biscuits which one of the ladies at Batanga had baked that morning, saying as she tied them up for us in heavy oil paper, that it would be the last food of that sort that we would taste for a long time. But when the rain came on, the native carrier who had them in charge appropriated the oil paper to carry his shirt in, leaving the biscuits exposed to the rain. As we stood eating them while it still rained, it was with mitigated sorrow we reflected that it would be the last of that sort we would taste for a long time. I will admit that this was a dreary outset, but it was not unfortunate. My tenderfoot rigidity had completely relaxed for the remainder of the day. I cared not what happened afterwards, and walked without timidity, fearing neither mud nor water, nor height, nor depth, nor any such thing. No amount of experience and practice in walking long distances on our public roads at home will insure success in walking a bush-path. In the latter there are constant obstructions and frequent annoyances, the obstructions requiring a peculiar physical aptitude, the annoyances a peculiar mental aptitude. The native possesses both aptitudes to a marvellous degree. The average native, carrying on his back a load of forty pounds, can keep up with the average white man carrying nothing. Yet, I have no doubt that on a turnpike, neither of them carrying anything, the average white man would equal the native and perhaps outwalk him. It must also be remembered that the white man is in a hostile climate in Africa, and is never normally strong. We started in the morning as soon as it was light enough to see the path, that is, about six o’clock, and walked eight or nine hours a day, stopping an hour at noon. We walked at a very rapid pace, almost on a run where the path would permit. About four o’clock we stopped for the day, usually at a camping-ground made by the natives in carrying produce from the interior. These camps were open glades surrounded by the forest wall and ceiled by the blue sky. Two or three nights we camped beside a flowing stream, a hidden brook, that “all night to the sleeping woods sang a quiet tune.”