uld
allow, for it was very hot on this low land, and yet, oddly enough,
chilly at times. But, however hot it was, we were glad enough to keep
near the fire, because we found that the mosquitoes did not like the
smoke. Presently we rolled ourselves up in our blankets and tried to
go to sleep, but so far as I was concerned the bull-frogs, and the
extraordinary roaring and alarming sound produced by hundreds of snipe
hovering high in the air, made sleep an impossibility, to say nothing of
our other discomforts. I turned and looked at Leo, who was next me; he
was dozing, but his face had a flushed appearance that I did not like,
and by the flickering fire-light I saw Ustane, who was lying on the
other side of him, raise herself from time to time upon her elbow, and
look at him anxiously enough.

However, I could do nothing for him, for we had all already taken a
good dose of quinine, which was the only preventive we had; so I lay and
watched the stars come out by thousands, till all the immense arch of
heaven was strewn with glittering points, and every point a world!
Here was a glorious sight by which man might well measure his own
insignificance! Soon I gave up thinking about it, for the mind wearies
easily when it strives to grapple with the Infinite, and to trace the
footsteps of the Almighty as he strides from sphere to sphere, or
deduce His purpose from His works. Such things are not for us to know.
Knowledge is to the strong, and we are weak. Too much wisdom would
perchance blind our imperfect sight, and too much strength would make
us drunk, and over-weight our feeble reason till it fell and we were
drowned in the depths of our own vanity. For what is the first result
of man's increased knowledge interpreted from Nature's book by the
persistent effort of his purblind observation? It is not but too often
to make him question the existence of his Maker, or indeed of any
intelligent purpose beyond his own? The truth is veiled, because we
could no more look upon her glory than we can upon the sun. It would
destroy us. Full knowledge is not for man as man is here, for his
capacities, which he is apt to think so great, are indeed but small. The
vessel is soon filled, and, were one-thousandth part of the unutterable
and silent wisdom that directs the rolling of those shining spheres, and
the Force which makes them roll, pressed into it, it would be shattered
into fragments. Perhaps in some other place and time it may be
o