II 
A JUNGLE CLEARING 
Wiratn six degrees of the Equator, shut in 
by jungle, on a cloudless day in mid-August, I 
found a comfortable seat on a slope of sandy soil 
sown with grass and weeds in the clearing back 
of Kartabo laboratory. I was shaded only by a 
few leaves of a low walnut-like sapling, yet there 
was not the slightest hint of oppressive heat. It 
might have been a warm August day in New 
England or Canada, except for the softness of 
the air. 
In my little cleared glade there was no plant 
which would be wholly out of place on a New 
England country hillside. With debotanized 
vision I saw foliage of sumach, elm, hickory, 
peach, and alder, and the weeds all about were 
as familiar as those of any New Jersey meadow. 
The most abundant flowers were Mazaruni 
daisies, cheerful little pale primroses, and close 
to me, fairly overhanging the paper as I wrote, 
was the spindling button-weed, a wanderer from 
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