28 JUNGLE PEACE 



was made blatant, the superficial was imagined 

 subtle, the glories of silent appreciation were 

 shattered by garrulous nothings. At the 

 thought of such fellow countrymen I hid my 

 face and strived with all my might to obliterate 

 the remembrance. Soothed by the rise and 

 thrust of the great ship's bow and the inter- 

 mittent roar of the steel-born breaker beneath, I 

 rested motionless. 



When at last I roused, it was with a start at 

 the altered scene. It seemed as if my thought 

 — Buddha-powerful — had actually wrought the 

 magic of widespread change. The alabaster 

 breaker was there, but oxidized, dulled; the 

 cobalt had become gray-black, and by the same 

 alchemy the emerald shallows were reset with a 

 mosaic of age-dimmed jade. Most of all was 

 the island changed. From strand to cloud- 

 capped peak, the tone was purple. In high 

 lights it hued to dull silver-gray, in the shadows 

 it deadened to utter black. Rugged and sheer 

 Mont Pelee drew upwards, its head in cloud, 

 its feet in the sea — the shadow-gray sea. My 

 eye strove to penetrate the cloud and picked 

 from its heart a thread of black among the 

 gray lava, which, dropping downward, enlarged 



