a Chinese mandarin.

On this our first night in the African bush, at least our first night on
a hunting expedition--we had been many nights in the woods on our
journey to that spot--on this night, I say, Jack and I could by no means
get to sleep for a very long time after we lay down, but continued to
gaze up through the leafy screen overhead at the stars, which seemed to
wink at us, I almost fancied, jocosely. We did not speak to each other,
but purposely kept silence. After a time, however, Jack groaned, and
said softly--

"Ralph, are you asleep?"

"No," said I, yawning.

"I'm quite sure that Peterkin is," added Jack, raising his head and
looking across the fire at the half-recumbent form of our companion.

"Is he?" said Peterkin in a low tone. "Just about as sound as a
weasel!"

"Jack," said I.

"Well?"

"I can't sleep a wink. Ye-a-ow! isn't it odd?"

"No more can I. Do you know, Ralph, I've been counting the red berries
in that tree above me for half an hour, in the hope that the monotony of
the thing would send me off; but I was interrupted by a small monkey who
has been sitting up among the branches and making faces at me for full
twenty minutes. There it is yet, I believe. Do you see it?"

"No; where?"

"Almost above your head."

I gazed upward intently for a few minutes, until I thought I saw the
monkey, but it was very indistinct. Gradually, however, it became more
defined; then to my surprise it turned out to be the head of an
elephant! I was not only amazed but startled at this.

"Get your rifle, Jack!" said I, in a low whisper.

Jack made some sort of reply, but his voice sounded hollow and
indistinct. Then I looked up again, and saw that it was the head of a
hippopotamus, not that of an elephant, which was looking down at me.
Curiously enough, I felt little or no surprise at this, and when in the
course of a few minutes I observed a pair of horns growing out of the
creature's eyes and a bushy tail standing erect on the apex of its head,
I ceased to be astonished at the sight altogether, and regarded it as
quite natural and commonplace. The object afterwards assumed the
appearance of a lion with a crocodile's bail, and a serpent with a
monkey's head, and lastly of a gorilla, without producing in me any
other feeling than that of profound indifference. Gradually the whole
scene vanished, and I became totally oblivious.

This state of happy unconsciousness had scarcely lasted--