Yet at dawn there were no signs of tents.

And when that night we arrived at Brown's homestead we seemed to have the whole world to ourselves.
Brown's house was a tiny wooden affair with a thick grass roof.

It boasted a big fireplace at one end of the living-room, and a chimney that Brown had built himself so cunningly that smoke could go up and out but no leopards could come down.
He got very drunk that night to celebrate the home-coming, and stayed completely drunk for three days, we making use of his barn to give our porters a good rest.

By day we shot enough meat for the camp, and at night we sat over the log fire, praying that Brown might sober up, Fred singing songs to his infernal concertina, and all the natives who could crowd in the doorway listening to him with all their ears.

Fred made vast headway in native favor, and learned a lot of two languages at once.
Every day we sent Kazimoto and another boy exploring among the Lumbwa tribe, gathering information as to routes and villages, and it was Kazimoto who came running in breathless one night just as Brown was at last sobering up, with the news that some Greeks had swooped down on Brown's cattle, had wounded two or three of the villagers who herded them, and had driven the whole herd away southward.
That news sobered Brown completely.