12 RIFLE AND ROMANCE 



during the rainy season fill this wide-banked space with 

 an irresistible flood. Close above the pool the steepness 

 of the bank is somewhat worn away, and here a rut-worn 

 cart track descends to cross the broad Sipna, on its way 

 westward from the jungle hamlet of Pili. Beyond the 

 river the forest road is at once lost sight of in long grass 

 and the tall straight trunks of the big-leaved teak trees ; 

 it is but a passing glimpse of man's influence in these 

 remote tracts, one of the slender threads he has drawn 

 through the untamed woods. 



Far upstream the forest river takes a bend to the 

 right, its shore opposite the abrupt angle piled high with 

 huge rotting tree-trunks and other heavy driftwood swept 

 there by the floods of late September ; and through this 

 one break in the enveloping jungle the surrounding teak- 

 clad hills are seen to rise tier on tier, glowing mauve-pink 

 in an early sunlight that has not yet pierced its way to 

 the dark valley itself, their distant woody summits stand- 

 ing sharp-cut against a clear blue sky. High up in the 

 calm morning air a flight of big green parrakeets cleaves 

 its way with piercing answering cries. 



Building on such a huge and inhospitable scale, Nature 

 here seems to have forgotten man, to have excluded him 

 from this stern wild scheme ; and it is with a culprit-like 

 sense of trespass that the solitary intruder finds himself 

 standing in these silent woods. The thickness and mystery 

 of the surrounding all-pervading jungle adds a touch of 

 disquietude. How easily a man might utterly disappear 

 in such solitudes ! A few paces into that bamboo cane- 

 brake the rush of some too suddenly disturbed feline 

 an unexpected meeting face to face with a startled bear 

 an incautious step on some comatose lurking Russell's 

 viper or the rash disturbing of that great bees' nest 

 hanging from yonder bough and he would be seen no 

 more. Nay, in this insect-crammed, life-teeming tropic 

 land he would in a few hours be completely gone ! 



