JAUNTS IN THE JUNGLE. 1 1 



determined not to commence hostilities till the mor- 

 row (" Honi soit qui mal y pense"); and, after a two- 

 hours' pull, the welcome summit of the mountain is 

 reached, in time to behold the sun rise from the eastern 

 sea in " one unclouded blaze of living light." 



Wiping the perspiration from my brow, I bring 

 myself to an anchor on the top of some inviting rock, 

 to contemplate a scene, the intense grandeur and 

 beauty of which would absorb every sense and feeling, 

 did not a huge cobra di capella at the moment, lifting 

 his hooded head from one of the fissures of my 

 adopted throne, send me sprawling among the grass 

 and brambles at its foot. A load of " No. 7 " shot 

 soon avenges my insulted dignity and interrupted 

 contemplation, and uncoils twelve feet of the deadliest 

 of the viper tribe. 



At the report of the gun, flocks of diminutive par- 

 rots of every imaginable hue spring from the branches 

 below ; minute birds of Paradise, with their two 

 streaming tail feathers, whirl over head, and 



Strange things come tip to look at us, 

 The monsters of the woods. 



In such a scene miles and miles away from the 

 mark of human hand, where, perhaps, one can only 

 see in its full force the truth of 



How beautiful is all this visible world, 

 How glorious in its action and itself, 



where, a human speck, we stand alone amid the 



