vi] SUDDEN STORMS 



of an inch in diameter and twenty feet or more in length, are as 

 strong as rotangs. In the whole building not a single nail was 

 used. 



The house was to have a verandah in front and another behind, 

 and was to be divided off inside into three rooms : the central one 

 serving as a hall, one of the side ones to be my bedroom and study, 

 and the other the sleeping room of my men. The kitchen was on 

 the ground beneath. In three days the principal portion of the 

 framework was set up. The Tuan-ku not only superintended the 

 work, but took the most active part in it, never resting for a moment. 

 At night we all slept in the lanko, where we were sometimes 

 obliged to seek refuge from sudden and heavy showers in the day- 

 time. The rain-bringing north-east monsoon had already begun, 

 but for the present its effects showed only in occasional afternoon 

 showers. 



From the small clearing we had made in the forest, we could 

 follow the big grey clouds passing rapidly overhead, hiding the sun 

 which had warmed our clearing but a few moments before, and 

 darkening the plain. Thunder growled and incessant lightning 

 streaked the lowering sky ; the rain descended in torrents, pro- 

 ducing a singular sound as it beat on the dense foliage of the trees. 

 On the ground in the forest the deluge does not fall with uniform 

 regularity. The rain loses its impetus on the aerial vegetation and 

 reaches the ground as it can, now in huge drops, now in streamlets 

 down the tree-trunks ; but in the end the water penetrates the 

 forest just as it does the open. After such a downpour a slight 

 mist rises from the soil, and the hot reeking dampness transfuses a 

 powerful influx of new life and energy into the vegetation. 



Who will ever be able to form an adequate conception of the 

 amount of organic labour silently performed in the depths of the 

 forest under such conditions ? Who can even in imagination 

 realise the untold myriads of living, palpitating cells that are 

 struggling for existence in the tranquil gloom of a primeval 

 tropical forest ? 



Our habitual conception of life is that we see exemplified in 

 animals, and few reflect that every tree-trunk and stem, every leaf 

 and flower, is composed of innumerable microscopic cells, most 

 of which contain an organised protoplasm, soft, extensile, con- 

 tractile, capable of sensation, of reacting to stimuli — of fulfilling, in 

 short, essentially at least, the functions we generally associate 

 with superior beings. How immense a field lies open to the medi- 

 tations of the philosopher and naturalist in the primeval forest 

 now that the veil which hid the mysteries of plant life is beginning 

 to be lifted ! 



Up to a quite recent period vegetable physiology was believed 

 to be based on purely chemical and mechanical processes, and nobody 



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