T H E W I N D 165 



moving river. Then slowly they had turned, bent by a force 

 greater than themselves, turned and followed the lines of least 

 resistance. Life flowed all in one direction. A series of whisper- 

 ings higher in tone than those given off by the trees near by 

 called my attention to a whitened corpse of a nearly dead lig- 

 num vitae. Through the years its gnarled trunk had resisted the 

 surge of air, but age and unrelenting struggle had got the best 

 of it. One by one the leaves had curled into brown crisps and 

 fallen off, the bark had whitened, even the iron hard wood had 

 become etched and graven, glistening palely in the moonlight. 

 The foliage had slipped from limb after limb, leaving them bare 

 and lifeless until only a small cluster of green remained on the 

 very last and most western twig. Life had literally flowed from 

 this plant, was pushed by the force of the wind from fiber after 

 fiber and from twig to twig. 



I rose from my shelter and stepped out into the stream. Its 

 force was surprising. While I had slept the trades had increased 

 in intensity until they were blowing half a gale; the loose fabric 

 of my shirt and trousers fluttered in the breeze; the temperature 

 was slightly cool and I shivered. Striding down to the water I 

 stopped at the edge and listened. Here, too, the air was alive 

 with sound, with the Hquid splash of wave on wave, the sing of 

 salt spray. But these sounds were mostly further out, and I 

 remembered that I was still in the lee and that the full power of 

 the wind would not become apparent until I passed a headland 

 called Pollacca Point a few miles up the coast. Returning to 

 the shelter I gathered together the contents of my two bags, 

 ate another tin of beef, and set out again determined to cover 

 a few miles before the heat of day. 



From that hour early in the morning the wind became a 

 personal enemy, a hostile and relentless antagonist which gave 

 no peace, chilling my body when I slept at night huddled behind 

 a rock, catching up the shimmering heat waves during the day, 



