At the quarter of his declension, I perceived a grove of trees, and fearing to remain all night on the open waste, rode swiftly towards them; but they were farther off than I imagined, and seemed to recede as I progressed, so deceptive is the distance of a level sandy desert; thus night was far advanced when I reached the shelter of their foliage, and overcome by a lassitude—a total prostration—there was no resisting, I had just strength sufficient to throw the bridle of the dromedary over the branch of a tree, and to roll off his back upon a bank of soft turf, when a heavy sleep fell on me.
Waking next morning, stiff, cramped, and drenched with dew, I looked round for my four-footed friend, but he had disappeared, and not a trace of him remained.
Thus, after all the toil and travelling of the past day, my prospects were little better than before.
But the forest scene was lovely! It was full of scarlet and golden blossoms, all bright as the glossy plumage of the parrots that nestled amid the foliage; while the perfume of the orange and lemon trees, which the dew of the past night had refreshed, filled the morning air with delicious fragrance; and now the mighty hum of a myriad great insects loaded it with monotonous and perpetual sound.
On the outskirts of the wood, between me and the far-stretching vista of the white sandy desert, my eye suddenly detected the tall dark figure of a savage, stalking about with a long asseguy in his right hand. He was naked, all save a scanty scarlet grass-cloth around his body.
Coiled up in my lurking-place, I watched with considerable interest the motions of this man of the wilderness. Supple, brawny, and strong, he had the form of a bronze Hercules, the agility of an antelope, and the eye of an eagle. He had detected the footmarks of the dromedary, and gliding about, with a light stealthy step, and a keen prowling eye, he tracked them with his face near the ground, until he came close to where I lay, but never, the while, did he venture within the actual boundary of the wood.
Suddenly his eye fell upon me!
He started; uttered a shrill cry, and poised his long asseguy, as if about to launch it; then he lowered it, and uttered a whoop, which brought some twenty or thirty other savages around him.
They all pointed to me in a manner and with expressions that seemed to indicate surprise or rage; they gesticulated violently, and by what they said, I could learn that by being within the forest, I was guilty of an act of sacrilege. Their language seemed a dialect of that spoken by the tribe I had lied from, on the north bank of the Gabon.