232 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



Francis heard, and, one after another, four great 

 backs slowly heaved up ; then an ill-formed head 

 and an impossible mouth, with the unbelievable 

 harelip, and before our eyes the sea-cows snorted 

 and gamboled. 



Again, four years later, I put my whole soul 

 into a prayer for manatees, and again with suc- 

 cess. During a few moments' interval of a trop- 

 ical downpour, I stood on the same little bridge 

 with Henry Fairfield Osborn. We had only 

 half an hour left in the tropics ; the steamer was 

 on the point of sailing; what, in ten minutes, 

 could be seen of tropical life! I stood helpless, 

 waiting, hoping for anything which might show 

 itself in this magic garden, where to-day the fo- 

 liage was glistening malachite and the clouds a 

 great flat bowl of oxidized silver. 



The air brightened, and a tree leaning far 

 across the water came into view. On its under 

 side was a long silhouetted line of one and twenty 

 little fish-eating bats, tiny spots of fur and skinny 

 web, all so much alike that they might well have 

 been one bat and twenty shadows. 



A small crocodile broke water into air whicK 

 for him held no moisture, looked at the bats, then 

 at us, and slipped back into the world of croco* 



