Page:Livingstone in Africa.djvu/75

They tell of our adventures by the road,
Wonderful, fearful, laughable or grave;
Gesticulating passionately gay,
Grimacing with a monkey-mimicry.
One says that white men rise from the salt sea;
Verily live below the green water;
Whence comes our long, lank compromise for hair:
The water we inhabit straightens it!
They mention my rough dog, poor old Chitani,¹⁰
Whom they affirm I cherish for his tail,
A tail that curls to right and not to left;
A tail by learnèd men discredited!

My trusty followers, my Makololo,
Astound the rest, relating how they toil'd
Athwart the continent;¹¹ arriving last
On a subsiding ridge of table-land;
Whence without warning burst upon their view,
Ocean!
Ocean! Vision never dream'd before—
On Him in His sublime infinitude,
Soliloquizing awful in the gloom;