HAMMOCK NIGHTS 201 



elastic strands and bounced upon my body. 

 There was an ominous swish of the air in the 

 sweeping arc which this missile described, also 

 a goodly shower of leaves; and since the fusillade 

 took place at midnight, it was, all in all, a some- 

 what alarming visitation. However, there were 

 no honorable scars to mark its advent ; and what 

 is more important, from all my hundreds of ham- 

 mock nights, I have no other memory of any 

 actual or threatened danger which was not due 

 to human carelessness or stupidity. It is true 

 that once, in another continent, by the light of 

 a campfire, I saw the long, liana-like body of a 

 harmless tree-snake wind down from one of my 

 fronded bed-posts and, like a living woof fol- 

 lowing its shuttle, weave a passing pattern of 

 emerald through the pale meshes. But this her- 

 alded no harm, for the poisonous reptiles of that 

 region never climb; and so, since I was worn 

 out by a hard day, I shut my eyes and slept 

 neither better nor worse because of the transient 

 confidence of a neighborly serpent. 



As a matter of fact, the wilderness provides 

 but few real perils, and in a hammock one is 

 safely removed from these. One lies in a stratum 

 above all damp and chill of the ground, be- 



