As I arrived on one side of this bush, the two suspicious-looking natives arrived on the other side, and we were separated by only a few feet.  I made a bound, and we were face to face.  The natives cast a glance at the sudden figure of a white man, and seemed petrified for a moment, but then, recovering themselves, they shrieked out, “Bana, bana, you don’t know us.  We are Wakonongo, who came to your camp to accompany you to Mrera, and we are looking for honey.”

“Oh, to be sure, you are the Wakonongo.  Yes—­Yes.  Ah, it is all right now, I thought you might be Ruga-Ruga.”

So the two parties, instead of being on hostile terms with each other, burst out laughing.  The Wakonongo enjoyed it very much, and laughed heartily as they proceeded on their way to search for the wild honey.  On a piece of bark they carried a little fire with which they smoked the bees out from their nest in the great mtundu-trees.

The adventures of the day were over; the azure of the sky had changed to a dead grey; the moon was appearing just over the trees; the water of the Gombe was like a silver belt; hoarse frogs bellowed their notes loudly by the margin of the creek; the fish-eagles uttered their dirge-like cries as they were perched high on the tallest tree; elands snorted their warning to the herds in the forest; stealthy forms of the carnivora stole through the dark woods outside of our camp.  Within the high inclosure of bush and thorn, which we had raised around our camp, all was jollity, laughter, and radiant, genial comfort.  Around every camp-fire dark forms of men were seen squatted:  one man gnawed at a luscious bone; another sucked the rich marrow in a zebra’s leg-bone; another turned the stick, garnished with huge kabobs, to the bright blaze; another held a large rib over a flame; there were others busy stirring industriously great black potfuls of ugali, and watching anxiously the meat simmering, and the soup bubbling, while the fire-light flickered and danced bravely, and cast a bright glow over the naked forms of the men, and gave a crimson tinge to the tall tent that rose in the centre of the camp, like a temple sacred to some mysterious god; the fires cast their reflections upon the massive arms of the trees, as they branched over our camp, and, in the dark gloom of their foliage, the most fantastic shadows were visible.  Altogether it was a wild, romantic, and impressive scene.  But little recked my men for shadows and moonlight, for crimson tints, and temple-like tents—­they were all busy relating their various experiences, and gorging themselves with the rich meats our guns had obtained for us.  One was telling how he had stalked a wild boar, and the furious onset the wounded animal made on him, causing him to drop his gun, and climb a tree, and the terrible grunt of the beast he well remembered, and the whole welkin rang with the peals of laughter which his mimic powers evoked.  Another had shot a buffalo-calf,