THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



some are altogether insignificant, some do not interfere 

 with us, and others, which do interfere with us, are highly 

 vulgar. You cannot ignore them, however, for life is 

 simply steeped in them ; they fill every pore of existence. 

 In the hot sun at noon crimson and blue dragon-flies are 

 darting about, carrying havoc and slaughter through the 

 fields of air. In the cold and stagnant pool close by, the 

 dragon-flies of to-morrow are leading the same blood- 

 thirsty life, but they are hideous brown wingless things, 

 which shoot along by squirting water backwards from a 

 bellows which they carry in their bodies. If you walk 

 through the grass on the margin of the pool, you will rouse 

 a score of muscular grasshoppers unhappy examples of 

 great power ill-directed. On many a succulent herb here 

 and there you will notice little accumulations of white 

 froth, and, if you wipe away the froth, you will find a 

 humble greenish insect inside. On that spot where you 

 find it, it has spent all its days, seeing nothing but dimly 

 through a foggy haze of its own creation, and never un- 

 happy until now, when you have let in the clear light of 

 day upon it. Striking type of the mental state of some 

 people ! 



You may see another symbol, if you will, in that hope- 



