Shall we climb it and look down into the camp ?" Leonard nodded, and climbing the tree with ease, they peeped down through the leafiest of its boughs.

All the camp lay beneath them like a map, and Otter, clinging monkey-wise to a branch, pointed out its details to Leonard.

He had been a prisoner there, and the memories of prisoners are long.
The place was peopled by numbers of men in strange costumes, and of different nationalities; dealers in "black ivory" of various degree.
Perhaps there may have been more than a hundred of them.

Some were strolling about in knots smoking and talking, some were gambling, others were going on their business.

One group--captains, to judge from the richness of their attire--were standing round the arms-house and peeping through a grating in the wall, which they reached by sitting upon each other's shoulders.