FAR AND NEAR 



protect the young leaf till it can stand and wave 

 alone. Then it begins to let go and peel away. 

 From one young tree I cut enough of this natural 

 hemp cloth to make me a shirt, should I be seized 

 with the penitential fit. It possesses regular warp 

 and woof, and the fibres are crossed over and under 

 as in real cloth. The cocoanut is strongly expres- 

 sive of one side of tropical nature, — its hard, harsh, 

 glittering, barbaric side. 



To our northern eyes, Nature in the tropics has 

 little tenderness or winsomeness. She is barbaric; 

 she is painty and stiff; she has no sentiment; she 

 does not touch the heart; she flouts and revels and 

 goes her own way like a wanton. She has never 

 known adversity; she has no memory and no long- 

 ing; there is no autumn behind her and no spring 

 before ; she is a prodigal, she lives in the present, 

 she runs to spikes and spines ; perpetual summer 

 has given her the hue and tone of August, — dark, 

 strident, cloying. She is rank, she is wicked; she 

 stings and stabs and bites you, or she heeds you 

 not. No turf in the fields, no carpet of moss and 

 lichens in the woods. Indeed, the woods are barred 

 against you. It is impossible to make your way 

 into them without cutting a path. The tangle of 

 vines, the spiny growths, the interlocked branches, 

 the close and fierce and unending struggle for ex- 

 istence of all manner of plants, bushes, and trees, 

 make walking in the woods out of the question. 



262 



