Niger

O QThe ship had put in at Falmouth. Mungo
'-'collected his scanty luggage and the coiled
masses of notes that had once reposed in the crown
of the beaver tile, and went ashore into the chilly
blow of December England. About him rose the
houses, the sea, and the green lands he had longed
for. He stared at them in that passionate delight
no traveller knows to such full ecstasy as the
Englishman returned from far wanderings. Fal¬
mouth slept under the brisk morning wind and knew
nothing of Mungo or his history : tall young men
with black-brown faces were common enough
phenomena in its streets.
He set out for London by coach, through mired
roads where the winter halted, where the villages
lay deep in the wet December mists and the sea
curled ashen to the south. Those winds blowing
through the coachwork stirred uneasy qualms in
Mungo ; the food he ate brought twinges of
dyspepsia. He shivered and wrapped his coat
about him, watching that cold grey landscape
slide past to the clop of the horses’ hooves. He had
returned : it was no dream, he was safe and free
from all that long tale of travail memorised in his
notes : he roused to a drowsy resolve. There were
details in those notes—details of indignities and
torments and random consolations he must delete
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