south, and was fifty to a hundred yards wide, the forest again
became dense and the trees large, with much undergrowth in places

obstructing the view and making progress difficult.
I spent several hours in this wild paradise, which was so much

more delightful than the extensive gloomier forests I had so
often penetrated in Guayana; for here, if the trees did not

attain to such majestic proportions, the variety of vegetable
forms was even greater; as far as I went it was nowhere dark

under the trees, and the number of lovely parasites everywhere
illustrated the kindly influence of light and air. Even where

the trees were largest the sunshine penetrated, subdued by the
foliage to exquisite greenish-golden tints, filling the wide

lower spaces with tender half-lights, and faint blue-and-gray
shadows. Lying on my back and gazing up, I felt reluctant to

rise and renew my ramble. For what a roof was that above my
head! Roof I call it, just as the poets in their poverty

sometimes describe the infiniteethereal sky by that word; but it
was no more roof-like and hindering to the soaring spirit than

the higher clouds that float in changing forms and tints, and
like the foliage chasten the intolerablenoonday beams. How far

above me seemed that leafy cloudland into which I gazed! Nature,
we know, first taught the architect to produce by long colonnades

the illusion of distance; but the light-excluding roof prevents
him from getting the same effect above. Here Nature is

unapproachable with her green, airy canopy, a sun-impregnated
cloud--cloud above cloud; and though the highest may be unreached

by the eye, the beams yet filter through, illuming the wide
spaces beneath--chamber succeeded by chamber, each with its own

special lights and shadows. Far above me, but not nearly so far
as it seemed, the tender gloom of one such chamber or space is

traversed now by a golden shaft of light falling through some
break in the upper foliage, giving a strange glory to everything

it touches--projecting leaves, and beard-like tuft of moss, and
snaky bush-rope. And in the most open part of that most open

space, suspended on nothing to the eye, the shaft reveals a
tangle of shining silver threads--the web of some large

tree-spider. These seemingly distant yet distinctly visible
threads serve to remind me that the human artist is only able to

get his horizontal distance by a monotonous reduplication of
pillar and arch, placed at regular intervals, and that the least

departure from this order would destroy the effect. But Nature
produces her effects at random, and seems only to increase the

beautiful illusion by that infinitevariety of decoration in
which she revels, binding tree to tree in a tangle of

anaconda-like lianas, and dwindling down from these huge cables
to airy webs and hair-like fibres that vibrate to the wind of the

passing insect's wing.
Thus in idleness, with such thoughts for company, I spent my

time, glad that no human being, savage or civilized, was with me.
It was better to be alone to listen to the monkeys that chattered

without offending; to watch them occupied with the unserious
business of their lives. With that luxurianttropical nature,

its green clouds and illusive aerial spaces, full of mystery,
they harmonized well in language, appearance, and

motions--mountebank angels, living their fantastic lives far
above earth in a half-way heaven of their own.

I saw more monkeys on that morning than I usually saw in the
course of a week's rambling. And other animals were seen; I

particularly remember two accouries I startled, that after
rushing away a few yards stopped and stood peering back at me as

if not knowing whether to regard me as friend or enemy. Birds,
too, were strangelyabundant; and altogether this struck me as

being the richest hunting-ground I had seen, and it astonished me
to think that the Indians of the village did not appear to visit

it.
On my return in the afternoon I gave an enthusiasticaccount of

my day's ramble, speaking not of the things that had moved my
soul, but only of those which move the Guayana Indian's soul--the

animal food he craves, and which, one would imagine, Nature would
prefer him to do without, so hard he finds it to wrest a

sufficiency from her. To my surprise they shook their heads and
looked troubled at what I said; and finally my host informed me

that the wood I had been in was a dangerous place; that if they
went there to hunt, a great injury would be done to them; and he

finished by advising me not to visit it again.
I began to understand from their looks and the old man's vague

words that their fear of the wood was superstitious. If
dangerous creatures had existed there tigers, or camoodis, or

solitary murderoussavages--they would have said so; but when I
pressed them with questions they could only repeat that

"something bad" existed in the place, that animals were abundant
there because no Indian who valued his life dared venture into

it. I replied that unless they gave me some more definite
information I should certainly go again and put myself in the way

of the danger they feared.
My reckless courage, as they considered it, surprised them; but

they had already begun to find out that their superstitions had
no effect on me, that I listened to them as to stories invented

to amuse a child, and for the moment they made no further attempt
to dissuade me.

Next day I returned to the forest of evil report, which had now a
new and even greater charm--the fascination of the unknown and

the mysterious; still, the warning I had received made me
distrustful and cautious at first, for I could not help thinking

about it. When we consider how much of their life is passed in
the woods, which become as familiar to them as the streets of our

native town to us, it seems almost incredible that these savages
have a superstitious fear of all forests, fearing them as much,

even in the bright light of day, as a nervous child with memory
filled with ghost-stories fears a dark room. But, like the child

in the dark room, they fear the forest only when alone in it, and
for this reason always hunt in couples or parties. What, then,

prevented them from visiting this particular wood, which offered
so tempting a harvest? The question troubled me not a little; at

the same time I was ashamed of the feeling, and fought against
it; and in the end I made my way to the same sequestered spot

where I had rested so long on my previous visit.
In this place I witnessed a new thing and had a strange

experience. Sitting on the ground in the shade of a large tree,
I began to hear a confused noise as of a coming tempest of wind

mixed with shrill calls and cries. Nearer and nearer it came,
and at last a multitude of birds of many kinds, but mostly small,

appeared in sight swarming through the trees, some running on the
trunks and larger branches, others flitting through the foliage,

and many keeping on the wing, now hovering and now darting this
way or that. They were all busily searching for and pursuing the

insects, moving on at the same time, and in a very few minutes
they had finished examining the trees near me and were gone; but

not satisfied with what I had witnessed, I jumped up and rushed
after the flock to keep it in sight. All my caution and all

recollection of what the Indians had said was now forgot, so
great was my interest in this bird-army; but as they moved on

without pause, they quickly left me behind, and presently my
career was stopped by an impenetrable tangle of bushes, vines,

and roots of large trees extending like huge cables along the
ground. In the midst of this leafy labyrinth I sat down on a

projecting root to cool my blood before attempting to make my way
back to my former position. After that tempest of motion and

confused noises the silence of the forest seemed very profound;
but before I had been resting many moments it was broken by a low

strain of exquisite bird-melody, wonderfully pure and expressive,
unlike any musical sound I had ever heard before. It seemed to

issue from a thick cluster of broad leaves of a creeper only a
few yards from where I sat. With my eyes fixed on this green

hiding-place I waited with suspended breath for its repetition,
wondering whether any civilized being had ever listened to such a

strain before. Surely not, I thought, else the fame of so divine
a melody would long ago have been noised abroad. I thought of

the rialejo, the celebrated organbird or flute-bird, and of the