102 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



of similes and human imagination, were soul- 

 satisfying in their simplicity. 



I seldom sat in one spot more than a few min- 

 utes, but climbed and shifted, tried new seats, 

 couches, perches, grips, sprawling out along the 

 tops of two parallel monsters, or slipping under 

 their bellies, always finding some easy way to 

 swing up again. Two openings just permitted 

 me to squeeze through, and I wondered whether, 

 in another year, or ten, or fifty, the holes would 

 have grown smaller. I became imbued with the 

 quiet joy of these roots, so that I hated to touch 

 the ground. Once I stepped down on the beach 

 after something I had dropped, and the soft 

 yielding of the sand was so unpleasant that I 

 did not afterwards leave this strange mid-zone 

 until I had to return. Unlike Antaeus, I seemed 

 to gain strength and poise by disassociation with 

 the earth. 



Here and there were pockets in the folds of 

 the sweeping draperies, and each pocket was 

 worth picking. When one tried to paint the 

 roots, these pockets seemed made expressly to 

 take the place of palette cups, except that now 

 and then a crab resented the infusion of Hooker's 

 green with his Vandyke brown puddle, and seized 



