midday
How often , I wonder , during the next week or so did we wish that we were flavoured like an Arab ! By the time that we had done laughing as heartily as our swollen lips would allow , it was daylight , and the morning breeze was coming up from the sea , cutting lanes through the dense marsh mists , and here and there rolling them before it in great balls of fleecy vapour . So we set our sail , and having first taken a look at the two dead lions and the alligator , which we were of course unable to skin , being destitute of means of curing the pelts , we started , and , sailing through the lagoon , followed the course of the river on the farther side . At midday , when the breeze dropped , we were fortunate enough to find a convenient piece of dry land on which to camp and light a fire , and here we cooked two wild-ducks and some of the waterbuck 's flesh -- not in a very appetising way , it is true , but still sufficiently . The rest of the buck 's flesh we cut into strips and hung in the sun to dry into `` biltong , '' as , I believe , the South African Dutch call flesh thus prepared . On this welcome patch of dry land we stopped till the following dawn , and , as before , spent the night in warfare with the mosquitoes , but without other troubles . The next day or two passed in similar fashion , and without noticeable adventures , except that we shot a specimen of a peculiarly graceful hornless buck , and saw many varieties of water-lily in full bloom , some of them blue and of exquisite beauty , though few of the flowers were perfect , owing to the prevalence of a white water-maggot with a green head that fed upon them .