72 PHRA RAM MAKES 



and at deliberate intervals, gradually increasing 

 in volume and rapidity ; one chirping like a robin ; 

 a second like a lost chick; a third like a catbird. 

 Then a burst of melody as day breaks, and the gray 

 sky grows lighter and lighter until it is blue. 

 From out of the southeast, where the sun is soon 

 to shed his rays, a rosier hue shows ; and the rakish 

 tree tops, and palms and festooning canes lighted 

 by a gray-blue sky make an early morning picture 

 of brilliant beauty. As the sun rises, bird notes 

 grow fewer and when the heat of the day has fully 

 developed, the quiet of the grave again settles upon 

 the country; a quiet that reigns always in the in- 

 terior of the dense jungle, where one does not see 

 the sun or hear a single bird note. 



At night, as dusk closes upon the jungle edge 

 there comes the catlike, distressful call of the pea- 

 cock, as it speeds swiftly to its roosting place in 

 the very top of the highest tree it can find. 



Through the more or less open country ap- 

 proaching the jungle edge, the heat increased 

 during the day until it became close and sultry, 

 though seldom the thermometer registered above 

 94° (and this was December) but the nights were 

 comfortably cool and insect life comparatively less 

 disturbing. Though mosquitoes were plentiful 

 and persistent, of the small kind requiring a fine 

 mesh of netting, yet the real insect pest was red 



