ix] A STORM IN THE FOREST 



having to depend upon no one but myself. My health, was perfect, 

 and I had nothing to fear from man or beast. My provision of 

 rice was sufficient, and my hencoop was well stocked. Here, 

 however, a small cloud arose. The greater solitude and quiet of 

 the place emboldened certain four-footed marauders, perhaps some 

 of the ViverridcB, and every night my stock of poultry diminished. 

 This made me resolve to eat them myself as fast as I could, rather 

 than let them furnish food to the thieves, of whom I was never 

 able to catch a sight. More than once during the night I was 

 awakened by a cry of distress coming from my poultry yard : the 

 old cock always gave the alarm, fought courageously, and was 

 thrice wounded, but I never succeeded in reaching the scene of the 

 battle in time. 



Of course, among my daily occupations was now that of pre- 

 paring and cooking my dinner : wringing the neck of my daily 

 fowl, plucking it, and putting it into the pot with the rice, which 

 completed my menu. This was occasionally varied by a pigeon 

 or a hornbill, which took the place of the fowl in the pot, unless I 

 preferred to grill it over the grating where I usually dried my plants. 

 One of my chief anxieties was that of keeping my fire alight 

 from day to day. Being unprovided with matches it was only 

 with the greatest difficulty that I managed to re-light it, if it once 

 went out, by means of a flint and steel which I had. The difficulty, 

 however, was not to get my tinder to ignite, but to obtain a blaze, 

 for the weather was rainy and every object was saturated with 

 moisture. Thus I took the greatest precautions to keep the fire 

 constantly alight. But one morning what I feared came to pass, 

 and on going to the fireplace not a spark could I find under the 

 ashes. A fire was necessary and had to be lit ; but for fully an hour 

 my efforts with the flint and steel were ineffectual, until at length 

 I remembered that I had my gunpowder, and when once the tinder 

 was alight I had no longer any difficulty in starting my fire. 



But the weather now kept getting steadily worse. The north-east 

 monsoon was making itself felt, and frequent and sudden storms 

 threatened to level my hermitage with the ground. In this solitary 

 clearing in the continuous forest the wind had good play, and 

 several trees threatened to fall. One of them, indeed, did do so, 

 and fell on my house, knocking in one of the corners ; but this 

 fortunately happened during the day time. 



Another hurricane, on a night as dark as Erebus, almost made 

 me think the end of the world had come. The furious blasts 

 shrieked through the tops of the giant trees and tore off branches 

 in all directions ; while every now and again the roar of the fall 

 of some monarch of the forest was heard above the storm. The 

 rain fell in torrential downpours, accompanied by a hail of sticks 

 and branches. I was afraid that one of the latter might kill me 



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