6 THE IMAGE OF WAR 



in connection with a tropical jungle. There Nature 

 is never still. Even dismissing such distressing, but 

 not constant, noises as the head-splitting whirr of the 

 knife-grinder beetle, continued hour after hour, there 

 is that hum and stir of insect and animal life which 

 must be heard to be appreciated. A few weeks after 

 my last departure from Ceylon it fell to my lot to 

 walk, at about 3 a.m., the then lonely road which 

 leads from Farnborough to Aldershot. There was 

 somethinof about it other than the extreme darkness 

 of the winter night that I failed to understand. Nor 

 was it till the sharp bark of a fox close to me made 

 me literally jump, that I realised it was the silence. 

 Utter, absolute silence I had not experienced for 

 years. 



Besides the muntjac, the jungle contained pig, 

 porcupine, hares, and the gorgeous jungle-fowl. But 

 they were safe enough. The particular hill is men-' 

 tioned by Emerson Tennant, who, I suppose, is still 

 the authority on the island, as the most snake-infested 

 in Ceylon. I certainly never saw but one there, and 

 that was a common rat-snake, such as is to be found 

 in every Ceylon bungalow. This, however, proves 

 nothing. In my experience, every snake, other than 

 the dreaded ticpolonga (Dahoia Russelli) flees at the 

 presence of man. (So, by the way, does every wild 

 animal I have ever seen, except the buffalo and the 

 Ceylon bear.) The tic does not because it is as slug- 

 gish as its bite is deadly. The booted tread of the 

 European is generally audible to the snake, and this 

 is the reason that cases of snake -bite are almost 

 exclusively confined to the barefooted native. My 

 servants never went out at night without a 

 lantern. 



