. The golden Chersonese and the way thither. theriver from tree to tree at a height of a hundred feet, and,as though in mockery, sends down a profusion of crimsonfestoons far out of reach. But it is as useless to attemptto catalogue as to describe. To realise an equatorialjungle one must see it in all its wonderment of activityand stillness—the heated, steamy stillness tlirough whichone fancies that no breeze ever Avhispers, with its colossalflowermg trees, its gi-een twilight, its inextricable involve-ment, its butterflies and moths, its brilliant but harshvoiced birds, its lizards and flying
. The golden Chersonese and the way thither. theriver from tree to tree at a height of a hundred feet, and,as though in mockery, sends down a profusion of crimsonfestoons far out of reach. But it is as useless to attemptto catalogue as to describe. To realise an equatorialjungle one must see it in all its wonderment of activityand stillness—the heated, steamy stillness tlirough whichone fancies that no breeze ever Avhispers, with its colossalflowermg trees, its gi-een twilight, its inextricable involve-ment, its butterflies and moths, its brilliant but harshvoiced birds, its lizards and flying foxes, its infinitevariety of monkeys—sitting, hanging by hands or tails,leaping, grimacing, jabbering, pelting each other withfruits; and its loathsome saurians, lying in wait onslimy banks under the mangioves. All this and far morethe dawn revealed upon the Linggi river; 1)ut strangeto say, through all the tropic splendour of the morningI saw a vision of the Tricntalis EurojKm, as we saw itfirst on a mossy hillside in fJlen Caunich !. TojciM fins. GREATER MOTH ORCHID. LETTER XII. AN UNEASY NIGHT. 179 But I am fonrettins: that the nicrht with its blacknessand mystery came before the sunrise, that the starssekloui looked throusjh the dense leafage, and that thepale green lamps of a luminous fungus here and there,and the cold blue sheet lightning, only served to intensifythe solemnity of the gloom. Wliile the blackest part ofthe night lasted the view was usually made up of theblack river under the foliage, with scarcely ten yards ofits course free from obstruction,—sreat snasjs all along itsticking up menacingly, trees lying half or quite acrossit, with barely room to pass under them, or sometimesunder water, when the boat drave heavily over them,while great branches brushed and ripped the thatchcontinually; and as one obstacle was safely passed, therapidity of the current invariably canted us close onanother, but the vigilant skill of the boatmen averted theslightest acc
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectchinade, bookyear1883
