trunk, and I think, as I wrap myself up in my two wet blankets
and lean against my tree, what a good thing it is to know how
to make one’s self comfortable in a place like this. This tree
stem is perfection, just the right angle to be restful to one’s
back, and one can rely all the time on Nature hereabouts not to
let one get thoroughly effete from luxurious comfort, so I
lazily watch and listen to Xenia and Kefalla at their fire
hard by.
They commence talking to each other on their different
tribal societies; Kefalla is a Vey, Xenia a Liberian, so in the
interests of science I give them two heads of tobacco to
stimulate their conversation. They receive them with tragic
grief, having no pipe, so in the interests of science I undo my
blankets and give them two out of my portmanteau ; then do-
myself up again and pretend to be asleep. I am rewarded
by getting some interesting details, and form the opinion that
both these worthies, in their pursuit of their particular ju-jus,,
have come into contact with white prejudices, and are now
fugitives from religious persecution. I also observe they have
both their own' ideas of happiness. Kefalla holds it lies in a
warm shirt Xenia that it abides in warm trousers ; and every
half-hour the former takes his shirt off, and holds it in the fire
smoke, and then-puts it hastily on ; and Xenia, who is the one
and only trouser wearer in our band, spends fifty per cent, o f
the night on one leg struggling to get the other in or out o f
these garments, when they are either coming off to be
warmed, or going on after warming. Those trousers of Xenia’s,
have something wronglibout them ; I don’t pretendió understand
the garment, never having gone in for that sort of thing
myself, but it is my belief he slings them too high, with
those braces, which more Alemanni he wears. Anyhow, in
season and out, they want taking off. Three mortal times;
to-day when on that wind- and rain-swept wall, the whole
of us have been brought to a standstill by Xenia having
to stand on one leg and do something to his peculiar vestments.
It’s a mercy he did not kill himself when he fell
over while engaged in these operations among the rocks
this afternoon— as it is, I see he has smashed the lantern glass
again, so that I have to keep- it under my blankets to
prevent the candle getting blown out by this everlasting
N.E. wind.
There seem but few insects here. I have only got two
moths to-night— one pretty one with white wings with little
red spots on, like an old-fashioned petticoat such as an early
Victorian-age lady would have worn— the other a sweet thing
in silver.
Then a horrid smell of burning negro interrupts my writing
and I have to get up and hunt it down... After some trouble I
find it is a spark in cook’s hair, he sleeping the while sweetly,
I rouse him, via his shins, and tell him to put himself out,
and he is grateful.
My face is a misery to me, as soon as it dries it sets into a
mask, and when I move it, it splits and bleeds.
(Later, i.e., 2.15 A.M.). I have been asleep against that abominable
vegetable of a tree. It had its trunk covered with a soft
cushion of moss, and pretended to be"a comfort— a right angle-
to lean against, and a softly padded protection to the spine from
wind, and all that sort of thing; whereas the whole mortal time it
was nothing in this wretched world but a water-pipe, to conduct
an extra supply of water down my back. The water has simply
streamed down it, and formed a nice little pool in a rocky
hollow where I keep my feet, and I am chilled to the innermost
bone, so have to scramble up and drag my box to
the side of Kefalla and Xenia’s fire, feeling sure I have contracted
a fatal chill this time. I scrape the ashes out of the
fire into a heap, and put my sodden boots into them, and they
hiss merrily, and I resolve not to go to sleep again. 5 A.M.—
Have been to sleep twice, and have fallen off my box bodily
into the fire in my wet blankets, and should for sure have put
it out like a bucket of cold water had not Xenia and Kefalla
been roused up by the smother I occasioned and rescued
me— or the fire. It is not raining now, but it is bitter cold
and cook is getting my tea. I give the boys a lot of hot tea
with a big handful of sugar in, and they then get their own
food hot.