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The Land of Footprints-Part2_Stewart Edward White(1873-1946)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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wilderness beyond.



The second picture, also, was a view from a height, but of a

totally different character. It was also, perhaps, more typical



of a greater part of East Equatorial Africa. Four of us were

hunting lions with natives-both wild and tame-and a scratch



pack of dogs. More of that later. We had rummaged around all the

morning without any results; and now at noon had climbed to the



top of a butte to eat lunch and look abroad.

Our butte ran up a gentle but accelerating slope to a peak of big



rounded rocks and slabs sticking out boldly from the soil of the

hill. We made ourselves comfortable each after his fashion. The



gunbearers leaned against rocks and rolled cigarettes. The

savages squatted on their heels, planting their spears



ceremonially in front of them. One of my friends lay on his back,

resting a huge telescope over his crossed feet. With this he



purposed seeing any lion that moved within ten miles. None of the

rest of us could ever make out anything through the fearsome



weapon. Therefore, relieved from responsibility by the presence

of this Dreadnaught of a 'scope, we loafed and looked about us.



This is what we saw:

Mountains at our backs, of course-at some distance; then plains



in long low swells like the easy rise and fall of a tropical sea,

wave after wave, and over the edge of the world beyond a distant



horizon. Here and there on this plain, single hills lay becalmed,

like ships at sea; some peaked, some cliffed like buttes, some



long and low like the hulls of battleships. The brown plain

flowed up to wash their bases, liquid as the sea itself, its



tides rising in the coves of the hills, and ebbing in the valleys

between. Near at hand, in the middle distance, far away, these



fleets of the plain sailed, until at last hull-down over the

horizon their topmasts disappeared. Above them sailed too the



phantom fleet of the clouds, shot with light, shining like

silver, airy as racing yachts, yet casting here and there



exaggerated shadows below.

The sky in Africa is always very wide, greater than any other



skies. Between horizon and horizon is more space than any other

world contains. It is as though the cup of heaven had been



pressed a little flatter; so that while the boundaries have

widened, the zenith, with its flaming sun, has come nearer. And



yet that is not a constant quantity either. I have seen one edge

of the sky raised straight up a few million miles, as though some



one had stuck poles under its corners, so that the western heaven

did not curve cup-wise over to the horizon at all as it did



everywhere else, but rather formed the proscenium of a gigantic

stage. On this stage they had piled great heaps of saffron yellow



clouds, and struck shafts of yellow light, and filled the spaces

with the lurid portent of a storm-while the twenty thousand foot



mountains below, crouched whipped and insignificant to the earth.

We sat atop our butte for an hour while H. looked through his



'scope. After the soft silent immensity of the earth, running

away to infinity, with its low waves, and its scattered fleet of



hills, it was with difficulty that we brought our gaze back to

details and to things near at hand. Directly below us we could



make out many different-hued specks. Looking closely, we could

see that those specks were game animals. They fed here and there



in bands of from ten to two hundred, with valleys and hills

between. Within the radius of the eye they moved, nowhere crowded



in big herds, but everywhere present. A band of zebras grazed the

side of one of the earth waves, a group of gazelles walked on the



skyline, a herd of kongoni rested in the hollow between. On the

next rise was a similar grouping; across the valley a new



variation. As far as the eye could strain its powers it could

make out more and ever more beasts. I took up my field glasses,



and brought them all to within a sixth of the distance. After

amusing myself for some time in watching them, I swept the



glasses farther on. Still the same animals grazing on the hills

and in the hollows. I continued to look, and to look again, until



even the powerful prismatic glasses failed to show things big

enough to distinguish. At the limit of extremevision I could



still make out game, and yet more game. And as I took my glasses

from my eyes, and realized how small a portion of this great



land-sea I had been able to examine; as I looked away to the




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