We Unsaddled Our Horses For Lunch, And After We Had Fought The
Stallions Apart - Mine With Several Fresh Chunks Bitten
Out of his
back - and after we had vainly fought the sand-flies, we ate bananas
and tinned meats, washed
Down by generous draughts of cocoanut milk.
There was little to be seen. The jungle had rushed back and
engulfed the puny works of man. Here and there pai-pais were to be
stumbled upon, but there were no inscriptions, no hieroglyphics, no
clues to the past they attested - only dumb stones, builded and
carved by hands that were forgotten dust. Out of the pai-pais grew
great trees, jealous of the wrought work of man, splitting and
scattering the stones back into the primeval chaos.
We gave up the jungle and sought the stream with the idea of evading
the sand-flies. Vain hope! To go in swimming one must take off his
clothes. The sand-flies are aware of the fact, and they lurk by the
river bank in countless myriads. In the native they are called the
nau-nau, which is pronounced "now-now." They are certainly well
named, for they are the insistent present. There is no past nor
future when they fasten upon one's epidermis, and I am willing to
wager that Omer Khayyam could never have written the Rubaiyat in the
valley of Typee - it would have been psychologically impossible. I
made the strategic mistake of undressing on the edge of a steep bank
where I could dive in but could not climb out.
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