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    up more than two people at a time in that aeroplane of yours!” she protested. “It isn’t safe.”
    “You mean you were afraid when we swooped down so that we could get that shot of yours of those zebras!” Johnny answered sourly. “It will be some time before I take you up again, let me tell you!”
    The plates were changed and we were served with the most enormous pork chops I had ever seen, rubbed in garlic, and served with saute potatoes and cauliflower. This in its turn was followed by bread and butter pudding and a choice of Kenya cheeses, bearing the familiar names of the English counties, with only one or two of the more famous French and Italian types.
    It was already after nine when the meal came to an end. I was glad that no one suggested that we should sit under the trees and listen to the night, for I was tired and longing for bed. In less than half an hour I had zipped myself into my tent and had eased myself between the sheets on the bed. The lights flickered ominously and died, but I didn’t care. I plonked the paperback I was reading down on the floor beside the bed and turned over and went fast asleep.
    Some time during the night the rain came tumbling down out of the sky. It was too heavy to be of any use. I could imagine it pouring down, washing the precious top-soil into the river and down to the coast. In my mind’s eye I could see the exposed roots of the trees we had driven past that day. It seemed unfair that such badly needed rain should all come at once. What use was it when one had three inches in an hour and then nothing for weeks on end?
    Somehow, even after the rain had ceased, I couldn’t get off to sleep again. There was an elephant close by, too close for my comfort, and I could hear a lion hunting on the other side of the river, and some hyenas howling into the night. Yet I must have slept, for it seemed only the next moment that the grey light of dawn came creeping into the tent and the first sounds of movement could be heard in the camp.
    As soon as I had washed and dressed, I went in search of breakfast. The net walls of the night before had been rolled up and were hidden under the roof, and the table, without its damask cloth, bore a utilitarian air quite different from the previous evening. Katundi asked me how I would have my eggs and whether I would begin with porridge. I managed to persuade him that eggs and bacon would be quite sufficient, but it was plain that he thought I could do better if I tried.
    “Has anyone else had breakfast yet?” I asked him.
    “Not yet. Bwana Doffnang comes first,” he told me. “Bwana Four-Eyes is always late!”
    “And Memsahib Kemp?”
    Katundi shrugged his shoulders. “We call her the Memsahib Golden Syrup,” he confided. “She comes only when she is hungry.”
    African nicknames are always apt when they are original, I thought. I thought that Johnny had probably inspired his nickname by making a feeble joke about his shortsightedness, but I couldn’t help wondering how Janice had come by hers. It didn’t only suit the colour of her hair!
    “I—I wondered if I should see Bwana Canning?” I said at last, a bit put out by my own interest in his doings.
    “But he is not here for breakfast!” Katundi laughed at the thought. “He goes at night to his own house over the hill. It is only while you are here that he comes for the evening meal, and that is because the china and the cooking pots come from his house and the vegetables from his garden.”
    “Oh,” I said. “Do you normally work there too?”
    Katundi nodded. “It is easy to find. All you have to do is follow the path by the baobab tree.”
    “Perhaps I’ll go and have a look some time,” I agreed in an off-hand voice.
    Katundi grinned. “He is usually there to drink tea in the afternoon,” he said slyly.
    “You shouldn’t tell me that! He probably likes his privacy!” I reproved him gently.
    “Maybe,” Katundi laughed. “Maybe, maybe not!”
    I was