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While gazing at the lofty plane, sycamore, and mimosa trees which surrounded the old scholar's home, the quiet square below him suddenly became astir with noisy life, for all classes of the populace were gathering in front of the sequestered house, as if some unusual spectacle attracted them. What could they want of the secluded philosopher?
The long pendulous leaves characteristic of this great mimosa and the drooping branchlets hung down much below the main shaft; but these, even if they touched the roof, would do no injury. It was, therefore, determined to let go the cable. It was now clear day, for they had been delayed a good while; but at length all was ready, and Guapo untied the cable, and drew the end on board.
Underneath all its flaunting and waving softnesses life ran grim and hard as grim and hard as the solid rock that lay so close beneath its jonquils and violets and its masking verdure of mimosa and orange and palm. He hated it, he told himself in his tragic and newborn austerity of spirit, as any right-minded and clean-living man should hate paper roses or painted faces.
He assured us that, before they had gathered in their present crops, the whole inhabitants of Kullo had been for twenty-nine days without tasting corn, during which time they supported themselves entirely upon the yellow powder which is found in the pods of the nitta, so called by the natives, a species of mimosa, and upon the seeds of the bamboo- cane, which, when properly pounded and dressed, taste very much like rice.
The thoroughfare was strewn with fallen lintels, broken marble screens, blocks of red sandstone, bricks, and in between them the fig and pipal nourished with the bebel-thorn, the ak, the mimosa, the insidious convolvulus twining everywhere.
"You'll have to, sometime or other," he declared. "I'll take you travelling with me, show you the world, new worlds, unnamed rivers, untrodden mountains. Or do you want to go and see where the little brown people live among the mimosa and the cherry blossoms? I'll take you so far away that this place and this life will seem like a dream." Her breath caught a little. "Don't, please," she begged.
The Mimosa is feeding its old age on the same soil which quickened its seed cell into activity. The seasons roll by me and leave me in the old place. The winds sway among my branches, as if they longed to bear me away with them, but they pass on and leave me behind. The wild birds come and go. The flocks move by me in the evening on their way to the pleasant waters. I can never move.
"I can't spare a moment," her brother sighed. "I'll take her out," Briston declared eagerly. "There's nothing for me to do to-morrow till Sidney gets back." "Well, between you, keep an eye on her," Hunterleys advised. "And, Sidney, I don't want to make a coward of you, and you and I both know that if there's danger ahead it's our job to face it, but have a care up at the Villa Mimosa.
All the natives of these parts are Arabs; the Bagara tribe on the west bank. At Wat Shely some of the latter came on board to offer their services as slave-hunters, this open offer confirming the general custom of all vessels trading upon the White Nile. 25th Dec. A dead calm the greater portion of the day; the river fringed with mimosa forest.
The Karroo is not an animal. It is a spot at present a lovely spot. I am surrounded by by nature and all her southern abundance. Mimosa trees, prickly pears, and aloes remind me that I am not in England. Ostriches, stalking on the plains, tell that I am in Africa. I must not forestall. Let me begin at the beginning.