My African existence had sunk below the horizon, the Southern Cross for a short while stood out after it, like a luminous track in the sky, then faded and disappeared. The landscapes, the beasts and the human beings of that existence could not possibly mean more to my surroundings in Denmark than did the landscapes, beasts and human beings of my dreams at night. Their names here were just words, the name of Ngong was an address. It was no good, it might even be bad manners, to talk about them.

Fate had willed it that my visitors to the farm by that time had already gone, or were just about to go. They were none of them people to stay for a long time in the same place. Sir Northrop MacMillan, Galbraith and Berkeley Cole and Denys Finch-Hatton had set out before myself; shortly after my departure Lord Delamere, Lord Francis Scott and Hugh Martin followed them. The Swede, Eric von Otter, who had distinguished himself in the war in Africa, died in his faraway post up north, my gallant young friend and helpmate, Gustav Mohr, was drowned ferrying his safari across a river. There they were, all of them, nine thousand feet up, safe in the mould of Africa, slowly being turned into African mould themselves. And here was I, walking in the fair woods of Denmark, listening to the waves of Öresund. To the south-east, a long way off, the plains of the farm, where in years of drought we had fought the wild, gluttonous grass-fires, and the squatters’ plots, with the pigeons cooing high about the chattering and the sounds of cooking below, were being cut up into residential plots for Nairobi business people, and the lawns, across which I had seen the zebras galloping, were laid out into tennis courts. These things were what are called facts, but were difficult to retain.

What business had I had ever to set my heart on Africa? The old continent had done well before my giving it a thought; might it not have gone on doing so? As I myself could not find the answer, a great master supplied it. He said: ‘What is Africa to you or you to Africa…?’ And again, laughing:

If it do come to pass

That any man turn ass,

Leaving his wealth and ease,

A stubborn will to please,

Ducdame…

Here shall he see

Gross fools as he,

An if he will come to me.

Dear Master, you have never failed me, your word has been a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Now I shall tell you, and prove to you, how right you have been in speaking about the stubborn will.