Abundant Beauty

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Marianne North. Abundant Beauty

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ABUNDANT BEAUTY

MARIANNE NORTH

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The Graf and Mary passed over safely, then flop! In went a young engineer’s mule in front of me, only his neck to be seen above the water while his master tumbled cleverly on his feet beyond the danger, and everyone shouted to me to stop, which Mueda had no objection to do. A big black man was called up and ordered to carry me, and I submitted under protest. He had no sooner got the extra weight (no light one) on his back than he sank steadily in the spongy ground like a telescope, and would doubtless have disappeared entirely if I had not scrambled to my seat again on dear old Mueda, who stood steady as a rock and seemed to grin to herself at the idea of anyone but herself having the strength to carry me.

After we had done laughing at this scene I was allowed to walk over on my own feet from sod to sod, and Mr. G. followed my example. We afterwards rode on tolerably well till we got to the small town where we were to breakfast, the high street of which was a torrent of mud. All the people had their heads and elbows out of the windows to see us pass, for many of them had not had a walk in the street for a month; they would only have tumbled into the pea soup if they had attempted it. Our engineer and his party were lodging here, and after accompanying us a few leagues farther, they turned back to give a few more despairing looks at the mud and to tell the people nothing could be done till the wet season was over—a fact they already knew too well.

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