Page:A pilgrimage to my motherland.djvu/78

Rh The doctor rode a young horse, unaccustomed to the road; Mr. Reed's could find its way back on any road it had travelled. The rain fell in torrents, and it was dismally, totally, absolutely dark; being out myself that night, I could not see my own hands, and sometimes, waiting for the flashes of lightning to show the path, my servant would stumble over me, unable to discover any object before him. Every one knows the impossibility of keeping, blindfolded, in a given direction, so we continually deviated from the narrow path, and were in imminent danger of falling into one or other of the numerous excavations from which the natives procure clay to construct their walls. A large rock intercepted the path my friends took returning home, over which Mr. Reed's horse, after some urging, passed, but the Doctor's obstinately refused to follow, and Mr. Reed's as obstinately refused to return. At last they concluded to pass round a little to the right of where they stood to rejoin each other, in trying to effect which both lost their way. Mr. Reed got home with but little trouble, but the Doctor spent half the night wandering over the least inhabited portions of the city, wet to the skin, the rain all the time pouring. He had been but a few days at Abbeokuta, and of course knew nothing of the language. Coming to a native compound, he essayed to attract attention by the