noon
She rode the Muscat donkey , which was dying from the bites of tsetse flies . Next morning she marched afoot in the blaze of the sun . Trailing thorns pierced her ankles ; the stipa shrubs showered her with little barbs , and from another bush was detached an invisible pollen that penetrated her clothing and burned her skin . At the noon halt they made a hammock of tent cloth , in which she was carried all the afternoon by four porters . At nightfall they saw , across a valley , the edge of the Mambava forests , the towering tree trunks banked with huge thickets and bound together by nets of vines . They camped in the valley , where a stream flowed through a tangle of indigo plants . The warm bath steamed in her tent ; the fresh evening garments were laid out ; everything was the same in this canvas ark that proceeded farther and farther into the wilds with its atmosphere of rude luxury intact .