- Was the constant cry. The most unpleasant
sensations were produced by the constant ripping and tearing sounds as
we passed under the low tunnel of vegetation, and by the perpetual
bumping against timber.
The Misses Shaw passed an uneasy night. The whisky had cured the
younger one of her severe sick headache, and she was the prey of many
terrors. They thought that the boat would be ripped up; that the roof
would be taken off; that a tree would fall and crush us; that the
boatmen, when they fell overboard, as they often did, would be eaten by
alligators; that they would see glaring eyeballs whenever the cry
"Rimou!" - a tiger! - was raised from the bow; and they continually awoke
me with news of something that was happening or about to happen, and
were drolly indignant because they could not sleep; while I, a blasee
old campaigner, slept whenever they would let me. Day broke in a heavy
mist, which disappeared magically at sunrise. As the great sun wheeled
rapidly above the horizon and blazed upon us with merciless fierceness,
all at once the jungle became vociferous. Loudly clattered the busy
cicada, its simultaneous din, like a concentration of the noise of all
the looms in the world, suddenly breaking off into a simultaneous
silence; the noisy insect world chirped, cheeped, buzzed, whistled;
birds hallooed, hooted, whooped, screeched; apes in a loud and not
inharmonious chorus greeted the sun; and monkeys chattered, yelled,
hooted, quarreled, and spluttered.
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