IN A FISHING COUNTRY 



room ease; for theirs was the gift of induc- 

 ing a perfect, vibration, devoid of warring 

 overtones, hampered by no defect of artic- 

 ulation. Everywhere, the far calls of the 

 woods are musical, never are they shouts 

 or screams. Nature's deepest note, of un- 

 surpassed musical quality, is the low of a 

 cow; thunder the loudest. It is said the 

 cow's soft moo carries further than the ear- 

 splitting crash — a confusion of noises that 

 tumble over and defeat one another. The 

 statement, if open to question, is not absurd ; 

 timbre is more important than volume and 

 must be controlled. 



One who was in a deer country with 

 Selous, told that as they neared the ground 

 where the animals were supposed to be, the 

 famous shot said to him: — 



'I am afraid you will have to stop talk- 

 ing.' 



'But, you! — ^you are speaking as loudly as 

 II' 



'Yes, so you might think, but you would 

 be heard at two hundred yards, I, not at ten.' 



As the woodsman ever does, he had taken 

 the edge (upper or lower edge it may be 

 — what gives the resonance) from his voice, 

 though still he talked, and did not whisper. 

 The dulled words lost the power of travel- 

 252 



