“We can at least call our costumes serviceable, and mine has proved much cooler than I expected.”
“But our new hats beat all for that–regular sunshades. What do you say?–there’s a good breeze– Let’s take a hike.”
“Not to the river! The very thought of that dreadful snake–”
“No; just the other way. I’ve been thinking for some time that we ought to run down to that south headland, and take a squint at the coast beyond. Ten to one, it’s another stretch of swamps, but–”
“You think there is a chance we may find a town?”
“About one chance in a million, even for a native village. The slave trade wiped the niggers off this coast, and I guess those that hit out upcountry ran so hard they haven’t been able to get back yet.”
“But it has been years since the slave trade was forbidden.”
“And they don’t sell beer in Kansas–oh, no! I’ll bet the dhows still slip over from Madagascar when the moon is in the right quarter. At any rate, niggers are mighty scarce or mighty shy around here. I’ve kept a watch for smoke, and haven’t seen a suspicion of it anywhere. Maybe the swamps swing around inland and cut off this strip of coast. It looked that way to me when I made that trip along the ridge. But there’s a chance it used to be inhabited, and we may run across an abandoned village.”
“I do not see that the discovery would do us any good.”
“How about the chance of grain or bananas still growing? But that’s all a guess. We’re going because we need a change.”