did to thee. Forgive him for the life he gave back to thee.'"

"Niani will always try to be good, because he loves his Master Selim,"
the little fellow said.

"So be it," answered his master.

"And I," said Abdullah, "want to be Niani's friend; and he must say
`thou' to me, and when we reach Zanzibar, Niani will find how grateful
an Arab boy can be."

Simba said: "Niani must look upon me as his father from this evening,
because he has neither father nor mother of his own. Master Selim,
Abdullah, and Moto are his friends; and when Niani is big like me,
Master Selim will give him a wife and garden, and a home, and he will
grow up with plenty of little Nianis around him."

This set them all laughing, and the idea of little Niani having plenty
of other little Nianis, lasted as a good joke until it was time to
sleep.

The fire was allowed to die out; but through the gloom of night in the
dark forest, with the broad, shadowy boughs swaying softly over the
sleepers, the everlasting stars, the southern cross, glittering Orion,
and bright, shining Canopus, searched them out, but they never looked
down from their exalted heights on a camp in Central Africa, where were
purer fellowship, or greater human kindness than that which those
sleeping forms contain within them towards one another.

The march of our party was continued the next day and for six days more
toward the south without having once emerged from the forest. They saw
plenty of game, and almost every day bagged something for the larder;
but they always kept a surplus of dried meat by as a provision for
exigencies.

On the seventh day after the scenes just detailed above, Kalulu thought
they might now turn west, and after going in that direction for three
days, might slowly point their faces toward the north-west, or alter
their direction towards Lake Liemba, as circumstances permitted. [See
note at end of this chapter.]

The genial shade and tranquillity of the primeval forest was soon
exchanged after they turned their faces west for the intolerable heat
and vexation of a low, thorny jungle. Their nostrils became offended
with the fetid rank exhalations of the cactaceous and aloetic plants,
and black gummy bushes, armed with many a horrid thorn, which struggled
with each other for place and air with the wanton luxuriance and
spontaneous growth which belongs to tropical plants. These loaded the
air with a pungent, acrimonious odour, which set them all