92 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 
ago, he had shone unfalteringly down the little 
stone tube that led his rays into the Queen’s 
Chamber, in the very heart of great Cheops. 
Just clearing a low palm was the present North 
Star, while, high above, Vega shone, patiently 
waiting to take her place half a million years 
hence. When beginning her nightly climb, Vega 
drew a thin, trembling thread of argent over the 
still water, just as in other years she had laid 
for me a slender silver strand of wire across 
frozen snow, and on one memorable night traced 
the ghost of a reflection over damp sand near 
the Nile—pale as the wraiths of the early Pha- 
raohs. 
Low on the eastern horizon, straight outward 
from my beach, was the beginning and end of 
the great zodiac band—the golden Hamal of 
Aries and the paired stars of Pisces; and behind, 
over the black jungle, glowed the Southern 
Cross. But night after night, as I watched on 
the beach, the sight which moved me most was 
the dull speck of emerald mist, a merest smudge 
on the slate of the heavens,—the spiral nebula in 
Andromeda,—a universe in the making, of a size 
unthinkable to human minds. 
‘The power of my jungle beach to attract and 
