| 
    The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: unless one was quite determined to commit suicide.  Now there was a
strong wind blowing from the direction of the waggon, across the reedy
pan towards the bush-clad kloof or donga, and this first gave me the
idea of firing the reeds, which, as I think I told you, were pretty dry.
 Accordingly Tom took some matches and began starting little fires to
the left, and I did the same to the right.  But the reeds were still
green at the bottom, and we should never have got them well alight had
it not been for the wind, which grew stronger and stronger as the sun
climbed higher, and forced the fire into them.  At last, after
half-an-hour's trouble, the flames got a hold, and began to spread out
like a fan, whereupon I went round to the further side of the pan to
   Long Odds     |