"Yes. The least amount of walking makes me hot."
"Well, but how will you be able to stand Africa?"
"Oh, it's a different kind of heat there, I believe. Besides, you don't have to go about in a black coat, a waistcoat and a starched shirt; except perhaps at service time on Sundays."
"What a pity black clothes seem to be necessary to holiness!"—(then seeing a frown settling on his face) "I wonder whether we shall see anything so beautiful as this out there?"
"As beautiful as what? Oh! The view. Well, I s'pose so. I believe there are some high mountains and plenty of forest near the place where I am to live."
"What is its name?"
"Hangodi, I think—something like that. Bayley says it means 'the Place of Firewood.'"
"Oh, that doesn't sound pretty at all; just as if there were nothing but dead sticks lying about. I hoped there would be plenty of palms and those things you see in the pictures of African travel books—with great broad leaves—plantains? Is it a village?"
"Hangodi? I believe so. I think the chief reason it has been chosen is its standing high up on a mountain and being near water."
"Oh, John," said Lucy after a minute's silence, "I do look forward to joining you in Africa. I've always wanted to travel, ever since I won a geography prize at school. Just think what wonderful things we shall see. Elephants and lions and tigers. Will there be tigers? Of course not. I ought to have remembered they're only found in India. But at any rate there will be beautifully spotted leopards, and lions roaring at night, and hippopotamuses in the rivers and antelopes on the plains. And ostriches? Do you think there will be any ostriches, John?"