The thirst for the wilderness was on me; I could tolerate
this place no more; I would go and die as I had lived, among
the wild game and the savages. Yes, as I walked, I began to
long to see the moonlight gleaming silvery white over the wide
veldt and mysterious sea of bush, and watch the lines of game
travelling down the ridges to the water. The ruling passion
is strong in death, they say, and my heart was dead that night.
But, independently of my trouble, no man who has for forty years
lived the life I have, can with impunity go coop himself in this
prim English country, with its trim hedgerows and cultivated
fields, its stiff formal manners, and its well-dressed crowds.
He begins to long -- ah, how he longs! -- for the keen breath
of the desert air; he dreams of the sight of Zulu impis breaking
on their foes like surf upon the rocks, and his heart rises up
in rebellion against the strict limits of the civilized life.
Ah! this civilization, what does it all come to? For forty years
and more I lived among savages, and studied them and their ways;
and now for several years I have lived here in England, and have
in my own stupid manner done my best to learn the ways of the
children of light; and what have I found? A great gulf fixed?
No, only a very little one, that a plain man's thought may spring
across.
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