THE FULLNESS OF THE VOID 59 hill oven, or " Kaffir pot," kept well covered with the dying embers of the sweet-smelling wood fire.

Wad Mustapha was a spot much looked forward to by my shikaris, eager, always eager as they were for meat. Sir Samuel Baker was once more brought to mind, for he wrote of the retreat of hippopotami from the Rahad to the Binder. Here we were to find them ; and on our way a reed-buck, one of the most graceful of the Afi'ican antelopes, dashed lightly through the trees, and, stopping through a fatal curiosity to examine the intruders, paid its debt to Nature.

Far from the river-bank the camels halted, and careful advance was made to the fringe of bush, the luxuriance of which proclaimed once more the river, which our short cut had left to meander through miles of straggling curves. Elephant spoor was, as usual, in plenty, and any part of the thick, tangled scrub might have held one. Paths, irregular and many-branched, had been trodden into being by mighty feet, rendering progi-ess easy ; yet they were narrow, and breast-high grass concealed all else.

Far below, a careful glance revealed a still, deep pool, so large that neither end was visible, and stretching from bank to bank. Crocodiles lay stonestill on a sandy pit upstream ; no ripple showed upon the water nor movement stirred the air. All was quiet ; peace and rest was upon the world.

Yet, as is so often the case in the affairs of man also, this tranquillity hid the whirlwind ; the void in reality was full.