About this time a fine figure of a man drifted into camp.  He was very smooth-skinned, very dignified, very venerable.  He was pure Swahili, though of the savage branch of that race, and had none of the negro type of countenance.  In fact, so like was he in face, hair, short square beard and genial dignity to a certain great-uncle of mine that it was very hard to remember that he had on only a small strip of cloth, that he was cherishing as a great treasure a piece of soap box he had salvaged from the shore, and that his skin was red chocolate.  I felt inclined to talk to him as to an intellectual equal, especially as he had a fine resonant bass voice that in itself lent his remarks some importance.  However, I gave him two ordinary wood screws, showed him how they screwed in and out, and left him happy.

After supper the moon rose, casting shadows of new and unknown shapes through this strangely new and unknown forest.  A thin white mist ascending everywhere from the soil tempered but could not obscure the white brilliance.  The thermometer stood now only at 82 deg., but the dripping tropical sweat-bath in which our camp was pitched considerably raised the sensible heat.  A bird with a most diabolical shrieking note cursed in the shadows.  Another, a pigeon-like creature, began softly, and continued to repeat in diminishing energy until it seemed to have run down, like a piece of clockwork.

Our way next morning led for some time through this lovely but damp jungle.  Then we angled up the side of a hill to emerge into the comparatively open country atop what we Westerners would call a “hog’s back”—­a long narrow spurlike ridge mounting slowly to the general elevation of the main hills.  Here were high green bushes, with little free open passages between them, and occasionally meadow-like openings running down the slopes on one side or the other.  Before us, some miles distant, were the rounded blue hills.

We climbed steadily.  It was still very early morning, but already the day was hot.  Pretty soon we saw over the jungle to the gleaming waters of the inlet, and then to the sea.  Our “hog’s back” led us past a ridge of the hills, and before we knew it we had been deposited in a shallow valley three or four miles wide between parallel ridges; the said valley being at a considerable elevation, and itself diversified with rolling hills, ravines, meadow land, and wide flats.  On many of the ridges were scattered cocoanut palms, and occasional mango groves, while many smokes attested the presence of natives.

These we found in shambas or groups of little farms, huddled all together, with wilderness and brush and trees, or the wide open green grass lawn between.  The houses were very large and neat-looking.  They were constructed quite ingeniously from coco branches.  Each branch made one mat.  The leaves were all brought over to the same side of the stem, and then plaited.  The resulting mat was then six or seven feet long by from twelve to sixteen inches broad, and could be used for a variety of purposes.  Indeed, we found Melville’s chapter in “Typhee” as to the various uses of the cocoanut palm by no means exaggerated.  The nuts, leaves, and fibre supplied every conceivable human want.