Unit 1: Selection Vocabulary 2

The flames livened up cheerily and cast a ruddy glow about us when Wa-du-pa said, "Grandfather, the last time we were here, you told us the myth of the eagle and the wren..."

"Why don't some of you go?" Ja-bae-ka retorted, picking up one of the kettles.

After a few moments' musing, and when we boys had settled down, the old man began: "Many, many winters ago, long before any of you were born, our people went on a winter hunt, away out among the sand hills where even now we sometimes go..."

The effect of the news upon the camp was like magic, faces brightened, the gloomy forebodings that clouded the minds of the older people fled as did the storm, and laughter and pleasantries enlivened the place.

My friend turned every mishap into a joke and broke the monotony of our travel with humorous tales and incidents.

And, after all, they did not eat each other before my face: they had brought along a provision of hippo-meat which went rotten, and made the mystery of the wilderness stink in my nostrils.

We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil.

Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags—rags that would fly off at the first good shake.

I had to watch the steering, and circumvent those snags, and get the tin-pot along by hook or by crook.

So he sweated and fired up and watched the glass fearfully (with an impromptu charm, made of rags, tied to his arm, and a piece of polished bone, as big as a watch, stuck flatways through his lower lip), while the wooded banks slipped past us slowly, the short noise was left behind, the interminable miles of silence—and we crept on, towards Kurtz.

But the snags were thick, the water was treacherous and shallow, the boiler seemed indeed to have a sulky devil in it, and thus neither that fireman nor I had any time to peer into our creepy thoughts.

The drums beat and the flutes sang and the spectators held their breath.

He was tall and huge, and his bushy eyebrows and wide nose gave him a very severe look.

In his day he was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow.

He wore a haggard and mournful look except when he was drinking or playing on his flute.

Some years the harmattan was very severe and a dense haze hung on the atmosphere.