blaze of our fires, everything seemed to turn into life. Every creature,
every reed, every leaf had a voice of its own; a howl, a rustle, a sigh
that filled the night air with diabolical sounds. It was a fearful
pandemonium; a mighty strife twixt victim and victor; an insatiable lust
for blood; a ferocious manifestation of ferocious love.

"Fire! Fire! let us put on fuel!" and we threw log after log upon the
burning piles whilst thousands of sparks flew upwards and the bright
flames cast a red glow around.

But the great voice of the forest did not cease; it still spoke on in
the roars and the bellows of the strong and in the yells and wails of
the weak. It rose up against us, as though pronouncing a malediction
upon the intruders, upon the profaners of those mysteries that, in the
inmost recesses of the jungle, great Mother Nature celebrates during the
night.

For hours we remained there, in a state it is useless for me even to
attempt to describe, and then as day-break approached the fearful
clamour began gradually to die away. Evidently at the first streak of
dawn the wild beasts had returned to their dens. The monkeys were the
last to finish as they had been the first to begin, but what was their
chattering and gibbering compared to that terrible chorus which, with
freezing veins and paralized brains, we had been obliged to listen to
all night?

It has never happened to me to greet a friend with such fervour as I did
the sun that morning. At its appearance a new concert commenced, but now
it was with the pleasant harmony of the buzzing and humming of insects,
blended with the gay singing of birds.

It reanimated us and we began to stretch our poor limbs which, besides
being stiffened and benumbed by the horrors of the past night, and the
thick dew that had fallen upon us, had also been an unconscious prey to
leech and mosquito.

Comparisons are odious. Granted. But between a tiger and a leech, a
panther and a mosquito, notwithstanding their affinity in the liking of
human blood, believe me there is a great difference, and it was perhaps
for this reason that we had not previously noticed the onslaught made by
these lesser carnivora upon our appalled flesh.

A few hurried mouthfuls and we were on the tramp again. Our sleepless
night, and the strong emotions that had kept us awake, made us feel
tired and listless, but the bare idea of being exposed to the same
torment and fear another time, gave us courage and