On we went through it all, till at last the sun sank in sullen splendour just as we reached a spot of rising ground about two acres in extent—­a little oasis of dry in the midst of the miry wilderness—­where Billali announced that we were to camp.  The camping, however, turned out to be a very simple process, and consisted, in fact, in sitting down on the ground round a scanty fire made of dry reeds and some wood that had been brought with us.  However, we made the best we could of it, and smoked and ate with such appetite as the smell of damp, stifling heat would allow, for it was very hot on this low land, and yet, oddly enough, chilly at times.  But, however hot it was, we were glad enough to keep near the fire, because we found that the mosquitoes did not like the smoke.  Presently we rolled ourselves up in our blankets and tried to go to sleep, but so far as I was concerned the bull-frogs, and the extraordinary roaring and alarming sound produced by hundreds of snipe hovering high in the air, made sleep an impossibility, to say nothing of our other discomforts.  I turned and looked at Leo, who was next me; he was dozing, but his face had a flushed appearance that I did not like, and by the flickering fire-light I saw Ustane, who was lying on the other side of him, raise herself from time to time upon her elbow, and look at him anxiously enough.

However, I could do nothing for him, for we had all already taken a good dose of quinine, which was the only preventive we had; so I lay and watched the stars come out by thousands, till all the immense arch of heaven was strewn with glittering points, and every point a world!  Here was a glorious sight by which man might well measure his own insignificance!  Soon I gave up thinking about it, for the mind wearies easily when it strives to grapple with the Infinite, and to trace the footsteps of the Almighty as he strides from sphere to sphere, or deduce His purpose from His works.  Such things are not for us to know.  Knowledge is to the strong, and we are weak.  Too much wisdom would perchance blind our imperfect sight, and too much strength would make us drunk, and over-weight our feeble reason till it fell and we were drowned in the depths of our own vanity.  For what is the first result of man’s increased knowledge interpreted from Nature’s book by the persistent effort of his purblind observation?  It is not but too often to make him question the existence of his Maker, or indeed of any intelligent purpose beyond his own?  The truth is veiled, because we could no more look upon her glory than we can upon the sun.  It would destroy us.  Full knowledge is not for man as man is here, for his capacities, which he is apt to think so great, are indeed but small.  The vessel is soon filled, and, were one-thousandth part of the unutterable and silent wisdom that directs the rolling of those shining spheres, and the Force which makes them roll, pressed into it, it would be shattered into fragments.  Perhaps in some other place and time it may be otherwise, who can tell?  Here the lot of man born of the flesh is but to endure midst toil and tribulation, to catch at the bubbles blown by Fate, which he calls pleasure, thankful if before they burst they rest a moment in his hand, and when the tragedy is played out, and his hour comes to perish, to pass humbly whither he knows not.