NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 443 



had been a very tall, stout Palm, 80 or 100 feet 

 high at the least. When the vitality of a Palm is 

 exhausted, the crown of fronds first withers and 

 falls, and then the soft interior of the trunk gradu- 

 ally rots and is eaten away by termites until nothing 

 is left but a thin shell ; and when that can no 

 longer bear its own weight, it collapses and breaks 

 up in an instant, with a crash very like a musket- 

 shot. 1 



A few weeks later, I had to make my way on 

 foot through the forest of Canelos, and it sometimes 

 happened that when we had to cook our supper, 

 after a day of soaking rain, we could find no wood 

 that would burn but these shells of Palm-trunks. 

 (The Palm was the curious Wettinia Maynensis, 

 which abounded there.) A single stroke of a 

 cutlass would often suffice to cause them to collapse 

 and fall, in a mass of dust and splinters, repeating 

 each time the report of the weapon of the mysterious 

 hunter of Vasiva, and not without risk to the operator 

 of being buried in the ruins. 



Sometimes when I have been deep in the virgin 

 forest, and could not see through the overarching 

 foliage any sign of rain in the sky, or was heedless 

 of it when not a sound or a breath of air disturbed 

 the solemn calm and stillness a shiver would all 

 at once pass through the tree-tops, and yet no wind 

 at all be sensible below. Then all would be still 

 again, and it was not until a few minutes later that 

 a distant soughing announced the coming tempest. 

 The preliminary shudder would bring down dead 

 leaves and twigs, and such a one might have 



1 This strange sound is briefly described in Spruce's Journal. Sec vol. i. 



