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ting manner. There is also Peter the driver, and Dirk who is a foreloper, the man who walks ahead of the oxen to guide them into the best way.
They expect to pay for the trip with ivory from elephants, feathers from ostriches, animal skins, etc.
The various adventures include encounters with snakes, rhino, hippo, giraffes, elephants, crocodiles, cataracts, tsetse fly, marauding native tribes, a bush fire, hundreds of miles of dreary grinding effort taking many months just to cover the ground, scorching heat, and sometimes cold. And more besides.
As usual with this author there is sustained tension throughout the book. An interesting and instructive book.
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OFF TO THE WILDS, BEING THE ADVENTURES OF TWO BROTHERS, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.
CHAPTER ONE.
COFFEE AND CHICORY, BUT NOT FOR BREAKFAST.
"Just look at him, Dick. Be quiet; don't speak."
"Oh, the dirty sunburnt little varmint! I'd like the job o' washing him."
"If you say another word, Dinny, I'll give you a crack with your own stick."
"An' is it meself would belave you'd hurt your own man Dinny wid a shtick, Masther Jack? Why ye wouldn't knock a fly off me."
"Then be quiet. I want to see what he's going to do."
"Shure an' it's one of the masther's owld boots I threw away wid me own hands this morning, because it hadn't a bit more wear in it. An' look at the dirty unclane monkey now."
"He'll hear you directly, Dinny, and I want to see what he's going to do. Hold your tongue."
"Shure an' ye ask me so politely, Masther Jack, that it's obliged to be silent I am."
"Pa was quite right when he said you had got too long a tongue."
"Who said so, Masther Jack?"
"Pa--papa!"
"Shure the masther said--and it's meself heard him--that you was to lave your papa at ho