Indeed, so weary did they become, that had they not been afraid of being left alone in an unknown country in the darkness, they said they would have thrown down their loads and refused to go any further.
That is as far as I was able to take the matter, which may be explained by telepathy, inspiration, instinct, or coincidence.

It is one as to which the reader must form his own opinion.
During our week together in camp and our subsequent journey to Delagoa Bay and thence by ship to Durban, Brother John and I grew very intimate, with limitations.

Of his past, as I have said, he never talked, or of the real object of his wanderings which I learned afterwards, but of his natural history and ethnological (I believe that is the word) studies he spoke a good deal.

As, in my humble way, I also am an observer of such matters and know something about African natives and their habits from practical experience, these subjects interested me.
Amongst other things, he showed me many of the specimens that he had collected during his recent journey; insects and beautiful butterflies neatly pinned into boxes, also a quantity of dried flowers pressed between sheets of blotting paper, amongst them some which he told me were orchids.

Observing that these attracted me, he asked me if I would like to see the most wonderful orchid in the whole world.