us beasts, and he preferred mountains, though the wildest, to
the low plain country where fever lay in wait for travelers.

In high spirits they started. Beyond that populous village they came to
only one settlement, very wretched and hanging like a nest on the edge
of a chasm. After that the foot-hills began, cut rarely by deep
fissures. On the east rose a hazy chain of peaks, which from a distance
appeared entirely black. This was an unknown region to which they were
bound, not knowing what might befall them before they reached Fumba's
domains. In the highlands which they passed trees were not lacking, but
with the exception of dragon-trees and acacias standing alone they
stood in clusters, forming small groves. The travelers stopped amid
these clumps for refreshment and rest as well as for the abundant shade.

Amid the trees birds swarmed. Various kinds of pigeons, big birds with
beaks, which Stas called toucans, starlings, turtle-doves, and
countless beautiful "bingales" flitted in the foliage or flew from one
clump to another, singly and in flocks, changing color like the
rainbow. Some trees appeared from a distance to be covered with
many-colored flowers. Nell was particularly charmed by the sight of
paradisaical fly-catchers and rather large, black birds, with a crimson
lining to the wings, which emitted sounds like a pastoral fife.
Charming woodpeckers, rosy on top and bright blue beneath, sped in the
sun's luster, catching in their flight bees and grasshoppers. On the
treetops resounded the screams of the green parrot, and at times there
reached them sounds as though of silvery bells, with which the small
green-gray birds hidden under Adansonia leaves greeted one another.

Before sunrise and after sunset flocks of native sparrows flew by, so
countless that were it not for their twitter and the rustle of their
little wings they would be mistaken for clouds. Stas assumed that it
was their pretty little bills which rang so, while in daytime they were
scattered on single clumps.

But other birds flying in little flocks, which gave real concerts,
filled both children with the greatest surprise and ecstasy. Every
little flock consisted of five or six females and one male, with
glittering metallic feathers. They sat on a single acacia in this
particular manner: the male was perched on the top of the tree and the
others lower, and after the first notes, which seemed like the tuning
of their little throats, the male