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myself listening, pleased by the sound of it. There was no harmony, at least nothing that I could recognize. Instead, each voice seemed to seek its own pleasure, without relation to the other. But there was still some interaction, on some subtleor perhaps merely rhythmic level, and as more voices joined in, the music became very full and lovely.

I noticed a motion, and turned to see Mwabao Mawa looking at me.

"Morningsong," she whispered. "Do you like it?"

I nodded. She nodded back, beckoned to me and walked to a curtain. She drew it aside and stood on the edge of the platform, naked, as the song continued. I held on to the corner pole and watched where she was watching.

It was the east; the hymn was to the imminent sun. As I watched, Mwabao Mawa opened her mouth and began to sing. Not softly, as she had yesterday, but with full voice, a voice that rang among the trees, that seemed to find the same mellow chord that had originally been tuned into the wood, and after awhile I noticed that silence had fallen except for her music. And as she sang an intricate series of rapid notes, which seemed to bear no pattern but which, nevertheless, imprinted themselves indelibly in my memory and in my dreams ever since, the sun topped a horizon somewhere, and though I couldn't see it because of the leaves above me, I knew from the sudden brightening of the green ceiling that the sun had risen.

Then all the voices arose again, singing together for a few moments. And then, as if by a signal, silence.

I stood, leaning on the pole. It occurred to me that once I had shared Mueller's delusion that people with black skins were fit only to be slaves. One thing, at least, I'd learned from my embassy here, and one thing I would take away: a memory of music unlike any other ever known in this world. I leaned there, unmoving, until Mwabao Mawa closed the curtains.

"Morningsong," she said, smiling. "It was too good an evening last night not to celebrate today."

She cooked breakfast-- the meat of a small bird, and a thin-sliced fruit of some kind.

I asked; she told me that the fruit was the fruit of the trees the Nkumai lived in. "We eat it as soilers eat bread or potatoes." It had a strange tang. I didn't like it, but it was edible.

"How do you catch birds?" I asked. "Do you use hawks? If you shot a bird, it would fall forever to the ground."

She shook her head, waiting to answer until her mouth was empty. "I'll have Teacher take you to where the birdnets are."

"Teacher?" I asked.

As if my question had been his cue, a moment later he was standing outside the house, calling softly, "From the earth to the air."

"And to the nest, Teacher," Mwabao Mawa answered. She walked out of the room, on to the next room where Teacher would be waiting. Reluctantly I followed, making the short jump to the other room, and then, without even a good-bye, followed Teacher away from Mwabao Mawa's house. No good-bye, at first because I had no idea how women who barely knew each other should say it, and then because she was already gone from the curtain before I finally decided to turn and say something.

Up was terrible, but down was infinitely worse. Coming up a rope ladder, you reach the platforms with your hands first, pulling yourself to security. But going down you have to lie on your stomach and extend your feet downward, hunting for a rung with your toes, knowing that if you go too far you won't be able to pull yourself up.

I knew that achieving my purpose in Nkumai depended on my ability to get from place to place, and so I refused to let my fear rule me. If I fall, I fall, I told myself. Then I ignored my peripheral vision and trotted along after Teacher.

He, for his part, didn't try to show off as much today as yesterday, so the going was easier. I discovered that maneuvers that were difficult and frightening when done slowly were much easier-- and much less frightening-- when done quickly. A rope bridge is steady enough when you lightly run across it-- but when you walk timidly it sways at every step.

When Teacher took a suspended rope with a knot in the end and swung easily from one platform to another, across an abyss