Rest, to certain people who protected him, and to a slave-trader who did him an injury. These references to me are a mystery; but what is clear is his desire to have his journal recovered from the Arab slave-dealer, described merely as 'The Wolf.'"

"And that is why you wish to go to Central Africa?"

"That is why, Venning. I must recover my father's journal if it exists; I must, if it is not too late, find out how he died; I must find out who are the wild people, and what is the Garden of Rest."

"The Garden of Rest! That sounds peaceful, but it is very vague, Dick, as a direction. A garden in a forest hundreds of miles in length will take some finding."

"I have a clue."

"So."

"There is mention of the 'gates' to the garden, whose summits 'are in the clouds'—twin mountains, I take it."

"Even so, Dick, I think I should have more chance of finding my new animal than you would have of hitting off your garden."

"Well, you know now why I have been studying Arabic. I have a little money, and no ties."

"Like me. By Jove! why shouldn't we go out together?"

"Because we have some sense, I suppose," said Compton, coolly. "Have you ever roughed it?"

"I have slept out in the New Forest—often."

"Oh, that's picnicking, with the bark of the fox in place of the lion's roar, and good food in place of 'hard tack,' and perhaps the attentions of a suspicious keeper instead of a surprise attack by wild men of the woods. An explorer needs experience."

"Yes, and he must buy his own experience; but tell me how he can, unless he makes a beginning."

"Now we come to the point, Venning. He should begin with some one who already has experience."

"I see. And you will wait till some seasoned explorer kindly asks you to join him? You'll have to wait a precious long time."

"I'm not so sure," said Dick Compton, with a knowing smile.

"Have you found your explorer, Dick?" shouted Venning, eagerly.

Compton produced a leather purse and extracted a slip of paper cut from an advertisement column, and passed it to his friend.

"By Jove! eh, that's splendid!" spluttered Venning, in his excitement as he glanced at the paper.

"Read it over."

Venning read the notice—

"A GENTLEMAN, who is an experienced traveler, being about to enter upon an expedition into Central Africa, would like to make arrangements with two young men of education and of means to bear a share of the expenses to accompany him.—Apply, for further particulars, to D. H., No. 109 Box, Office of this paper."

"Let us write at once to D. H.," he said eagerly.

"I have seen him."

Venning took a deep breath and stared at his friend.

"I saw him this very morning," said Compton, quietly.

"And—————"

"He said you were too young! Eh? Go on—go on!"

"And I told him I thought I could find a friend who would join me."

"You mean to say that he agreed to take you?" cried Venning, jumping up.

Compton nodded.

"Oh, splendid! And you will take me to him? You're a brick. What is he like, eh? Is he old or young, eh?"

Compton kept cool outwardly, but he could not subdue the glitter of his dark eyes, or keep the colour out of his cheeks.

"He is about five feet four. I can look over his head."

"Oh!"

"There are grey hairs in his beard."

"Quite old; old and little! What bad luck! He will have to look up to us."

"Well, you know, he can't help being small, can he?"

"I suppose, like most little men, he is as vain as he can stick, bumptious, and fidgety," said Venning, despondently.

"He struck me as being very quiet. At any rate, you can judge for yourself, as we are due to see him within half an hour. You must tell him that you are a naturalist, as he intends writing a book, in which a great deal of space will be given to animals. He said he felt a 'bit shaky on his pins' when it came to scientific terms."

"I should be glad to help him there," said Venning; "but it is too good. He would never take a youngster like me."

"He said he would rather have a youngster who would carry out his own views about treating a subject, than a man who would try to teach him his business. Come along and see him for yourself."

"Within half an hour the two friends who had just left school entered a room which was part library, part museum, armoury, dining- room, and cabin, so crammed it was.

"This is my friend Venning, Mr. Hume."

"Glad to see you, Venning. Sit down anywhere."

Compton sat down between the horns of a bleached buffalo skull, but Venning stood like one in a trance. His hand had been swallowed up by a huge palm and thick iron-like fingers, and he was staring down on a pair of the broadest shoulders he had seen, with an arching chest to match. This was the pigmy he had imagined—this man with the shoulders of a giant and the chest of a Hercules. Then his eyes ranged over the walls, gradually recovering their animation.

"Know 'em," said Mr. Hume, waving a bronzed hand towards the wall.

"I think so, sir."

"Just reel off the names."

Venning reeled off the names of a score or more of animals without hesitation, and Mr. Hume looked pleased.

"There are some men," he said, "who come in here and talk over me and round me and under me about fur and feather, and they can't tell a bighorn from a koodoo by the horns on the wall. Now, my friend, you knew those over there in the corner were the horns of a koodoo, but do you know his habits?"

"No, sir; but I spent a month watching a Dartmoor deer."

"A month! Can't learn anything in a month, boy; but you've struck the right book. The pages that are spread out under the sky hold the right teaching, for those who wish to learn about animals. There are writers who make a study of structure; they argue from bones, and classify; but bones don't tell us about the living flesh and blood. You take my meaning?"

"You make a difference between the structure of animals and their habits."

"That's so, my lad. Ever read Jeffreys, and the sketches by the 'Son of the Marshes'?"

"They're splendid."

Mr. Hume nodded and filled a pipe, having a footlong stem, made out of the wing-bone of an albatross.

"I want to describe the personal habits of animals in their surroundings. I said 'personal' habits. Do you take me?"

"No, sir."

"You think I should use another word, and say, perhaps, 'distinctive' habits. I say personal. Now, you take a lion—a bush lion or a veld lion, a yellow lion or a black lion, young or old. That lion, whichever one you take, is a lion by himself. He's got his own character and his own experience. All lions have ways in common because they're built alike. They're heavy and muscular because they've got to pull down big game; and because they're heavy they move slowly, and because they move slowly they've got to adopt common tactics in hunting. Good; but one lion differs from another, and so with other animals, right away through the list. So, I say, one must study the personal habits of animals in their own back yard, so to say, before he can give a true description