212 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



some small marauder. It is then that a miracle 

 is enacted. For one is at last enabled, under 

 these propitious circumstances, to achieve the 

 impossible, to control and manipulate the void 

 and the invisible, to obey that unforgotten advice 

 of one's youth, "Oh, g'wan — crawl into a hole 

 and pull the hole in after you!" At an early age, 

 this unnatural advice held my mind, so that I 

 devised innumerable means of verifying it; I 

 was filled with a despair and longing whenever I 

 met it anew. But it was an ambition appeased 

 only in maturity. And this is the miracle of the 

 tropics: climb up into the hamaca, and, at this 

 altitude, draw in the hole of the mosquitaro fun- 

 nel, making it fast with a single knot. It is done. 

 One is at rest, and lying back, listens to the hum- 

 ming of all the mosquitos in the world, to be 

 lulled to sleep by the sad, minor singing of their 

 myriad wings. But though I have slung my 

 hammock in many lands, on all the continents, 

 I have few memories of netting nights. Usually, 

 both in tropics and in tempered climes, one may 

 boldly lie with face uncovered to the night. 



And this brings us to the greatest joy of ham- 

 mock life, admission to the secrets of the wilder- 

 ness, initiation to new intimacies and subtleties 



