A leisurely breakfast alone, with the sun climbing; then the writing of notes, a little reading, and perhaps a stroll to the village or along the top of the ridge.  At the heat of noon a siesta with a cool cocoanut at my elbow.  The view was beautiful on all sides; our great tree full of birds; the rising and dying winds in the palms like the gathering oncoming rush of the rains.  From mountain to mountain sounded the wild, far-carrying ululations of the natives, conveying news or messages across the wide jungle.  Towards sunset I wandered out in the groves, enjoying the many bright flowers, the tall, sweet grasses, and the cocoa-palms against the sky.  Piles of cocoanuts lay on the ground, covered each with a leaf plaited in a peculiarly individual manner to indicate ownership.  Small boys, like little black imps, clung naked half-way up the slim trunks of the palms, watching me bright-eyed above the undergrowth.  In all directions, crossing and recrossing, ran a maze of beaten paths.  Each led somewhere, but it would require the memory of—­well, of a native, to keep all their destinations in mind.

I used to follow some of them to their ending in little cocoa-leaf houses on the tops of knolls or beneath mangoes; and would talk with the people.  They were very grave and very polite, and seemed to be living out their lives quite correctly according to their conceptions.  Again, it was borne in on me that these people are not stumbling along the course of evolution in our footsteps, but have gone as far in their path as we have in ours; that they have reached at least as complete a correspondence with their environment as we with our own.[4]

If F. had not returned by the time I reached camp, I would seat myself in my canvas chair, and thence dispense justice, advice, or medical treatment.  If none of these things seemed demanded, I smoked my pipe.  To me one afternoon came a big-framed, old, dignified man, with the heavy beard, the noble features, the high forehead, and the blank statue eyes of the blind Homer.  He was led by a very small, very bright-eyed naked boy.  At some twenty feet distance he squatted down cross-legged before me.  For quite five minutes he sat there silent, while I sat in my camp chair, smoked and waited.  At last he spoke in a rolling deep bass voice rich and vibrating—­a delight to hear.

“Jambo (greeting)!” said he.

“Jambo!” I replied mildly.

Again a five-minute silence.  I had begun reading, and had all but forgotten his presence.

“Jambo bwana (greeting, master)!” he rolled out.

“Jambo!” I repeated.

The same dignified, unhasting pause.

“Jambo bwana m’kubwa (greeting, great master)!”

“Jambo!” quoth I, and went on reading.  The sun was dropping, but the old man seemed in no hurry.

“Jambo bwana m’kubwa sana (greeting, most mighty master)!” he boomed at last.

“Jambo!” said I.