read along part 4

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"The world is a big place," Arab Ruta said. "I have been north as far as the Uasin Gishu, farther south than Kericho, and I have walked on the slopes of Ol Donia Kenya. But everywhere a man goes there is still more of the world at his shoulder, or behind his back, or in front of his eyes, so that it is useless to go on. I have hunted buffalo and lion, and traded sheep near the place called Soyamu, and I have talked with other men in all these places. After such things a man comes back to his home, and he is not much wiser."

From "West with the Night" by Beryl Markham about her years in Africa.

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read along part 3

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"I am incapable of a profound remark on the workings of destiny. It seems to get up early and go to bed very late, and it acts most generously toward the people who nudge it off the road whenever they meet it."

(Also see August 8 posting)

- From “West with the Night” by Beryl Markham about her experiences in Africa. Published in 1942

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read along part 2

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“As the herd [impala, wildebeest, zebra] moved it became a carpet of rust-brown and grey and dull red. It was not like a herd of cattle or of sheep because it was wild, and it carried with it the stamp of wilderness and the freedom of a land still more a possession of Nature than of men. To see ten thousand animals untamed and not branded with the symbols of human commerce is like scaling an unconquered mountain for the first time, or like finding a forest without roads or footpaths, or the blemish of an axe. You know then what you had always been told—that the world once lived and grew without adding machines and newsprint and brick-walled streets and the tyranny of clocks.”

(also see August 4 posting)

- From “West with the Night” by Beryl Markham about her experiences in Africa. Published in 1942

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read along

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“I learned to watch, to put my trust in other hands than mine. I learned to wander. I learned what every dreaming child needs to know—that no horizon is so far that you cannot get above it or beyond it. These I learned at once. But most things come harder.”

- By Beryl Markham, “West with the Night.” 1942

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