BENEATH TROPIC SEAS 



What would I not give in exchange for five minutes 

 of coexistence with them! 



As the sun went down on this very newest of 

 the world's days, one of the valleys could not join 

 its fellows in their darkening twilight — a valley 

 whose slopes some dark-minded native had put to 

 the torch. Some negro wished to burn the brush 

 on his miserable garden ledge so that he could 

 more easily plant his next crop. The fire did his 

 bidding, and then he turned and closed his door 

 and in his air-tight hut of thatch and clay snored 

 through the night. But the fire knew no sleep, 

 and looking up, saw with joy new realms above, 

 and on and on it leaped, and when the sun sank 

 it had spread so that it could pretend to be a con- 

 stellation — the first of the night stars. In the 

 darkness across two valleys I could see every limb 

 outlined as the flames licked up tlie pitch trunks 

 and roared through the resinous needles. Yes- 

 terday the slope had been densely covered with 

 splendid trees. They had stood patiently for a 

 century or longer, drawing to themselves largesse 

 of earth and sun and rain, and fashioning this into 

 splendor of trunk and root and needle. Now, at 

 the scratch of a match, a goodly fraction of the 

 horizon was wickedly wrecked; the morning would 

 show only smoking ruins. 



At midnight I rose and walked for a time in 

 the moonlight. My path lay a mile above the 

 tropical sea — all invisible to me but stretching 

 away from Haiti in every direction. As soon as 



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