Outside Nothing Is Heard Beyond The Cry Of A Stray Florican, Or Guinea-Fowl, Which Has Lost Her Mate, Or

The hoarse croaking of the frogs in the pool hard by, or the song of the crickets which seems to

Lull the day to rest; inside our camp are heard the gurgles of the gourd pipes as the men inhale the blue ether, which I also love. I am contented and happy, stretched on my carpet under the dome of living foliage, smoking my short meerschaum, indulging in thoughts - despite the beauty of the still grey light of the sky; and of the air of serenity which prevails around - of home and friends in distant America, and these thoughts soon change to my work - yet incomplete - to the man who to me is yet a myth, who, for all I know, may be dead, or may be near or far from me tramping through just such a forest, whose tops I see bound the view outside my camp. We are both on the same soil, perhaps in the same forest - who knows? - yet is he to me so far removed that he might as well be in his own little cottage of Ulva. Though I am even now ignorant of his very existence, yet I feel a certain complacency, a certain satisfaction which would be difficult to describe. Why is man so feeble, and weak, that he must tramp, tramp hundreds of miles to satisfy the doubts his impatient and uncurbed mind feels?

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 272 of 595
Words from 73969 to 74221 of 163520