Yells, Hoarse Or Shrill, And Roars More Or Less Guttural, Were
Significant Of Any Of The Wild Beasts With Which
The forest abounds,
and recalled the verse in Psalm civ., "Thou makest darkness that it may
be night, wherein all
The beasts of the forest do move." Then there
were cries as of fierce gambols, or of pursuit and capture, of hunter
and victim; and at times, in the midst of profound stillness, came huge
plungings, with accompanying splashings, which I thought were made by
alligators, but which Captain Murray thinks were more likely the riot
of elephants disturbed while drinking. There were hundreds of
mysterious and unfamiliar sounds great and small, significant of the
unknown beast, reptile, and insect world which the jungle hides, and
then silences.
Sheet lightning, very blue, revealed at intervals the strong stream
swirling past under a canopy of trees falling and erect, with straight
stems one hundred and fifty feet high probably, surmounted by crowns of
drooping branches; palms with their graceful plumage; lianas hanging,
looping, twisting - their orange fruitage hanging over our heads; great
black snags; the lithe, wiry forms of our boat-men always straining to
their utmost; and the motionless white turban of the Hadji, - all for a
second relieved against the broad blue flame, to be again lost in
darkness.
The Linggi above Permatang Pasir, with its sharp turns and muddy hurry,
is, I should say, from thirty to sixty feet wide, a mere pathway
through the jungle. Do not think of a jungle, as I used to think of it,
as an entanglement or thicket of profuse and matted scrub, for it is in
these regions at least a noble forest of majestic trees, many of them
supported at their roots by three buttresses, behind which thirty men
could find shelter.
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