levation, is always beautiful, and sometimes grand. Forest, of
course, prevails; yet, with a glass, and often by the unaided eye,
gentle hills, swelling from the wooded landscape, may be seen covered
with native huts, whose neighborhood is checkered with patches of
sward and cultivation, and inclosed by massive belts of primeval
wildness. Such is commonly the westward view; but north and east, as
far as vision extends, noble outlines of hill and mountain may be
traced against the sky, lapping each other with their mighty folds,
until they fade away in the azure horizon.

When a view like this is beheld at morning, in the neighborhood of
rivers, a dense mist will be observed lying beneath the spectator in a
solid stratum, refracting the light now breaking from the east. Here
and there, in this lake of vapor, the tops of hills peer up like green
islands in a golden sea. But, ere you have time to let fancy run riot,
the "cloud compelling" orb lifts its disc over the mountains, and the
fogs of the valley, like ghosts at cock-crow, flit from the dells they
have haunted since nightfall. Presently, the sun is out in his
terrible splendor. Africa unveils to her master, and the blue sky and
green forest blaze and quiver with his beams.

CHAPTER XXI.

I felt so much the lack of scenery in my narrative, that I thought it
well to group in a few pages the African pictures I have given in the
last chapter. My story had too much of the bareness of the Greek
stage, and I was conscious that landscape, as well as action, was
required to mellow the subject and relieve it from tedium. After our
dash through the wilderness, let us return to the slow toil of the
caravan.

Four days brought us to Tamisso from our last halt. We camped on the
copious brook that ran near the town-walls, and while Ali-Ninpha
thought proper to compliment the chief, Mohamedoo, by a formal
announcement of our arrival, the caravan made ready for reception by
copious, but _needed_, ablutions of flesh and raiment. The women,
especially, were careful in adorning and heightening their charms.
Wool was combed to its utmost rigidity; skins were greased till they
shone like polished ebony; ankles and arms were restrung with beads;
and loins were girded with snowy waist-cloths. Ali-Ninpha knew the
pride of his old Mandingo companions, and was satisfied that Mohamedoo
would have been mortified had we surprised him within the precincts of
his court, squatted, perh