102 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 
of similes and human imagination, were soul- 
satisfying in their simplicity. 
I seldom sat in one spot more than a few min- 
utes, but climbed and shifted, tried new seats, 
couches, perches, grips, sprawling out along the 
tops of two parallel monsters, or slipping under 
their bellies, always finding some easy way to 
swing up again. Two openings just permitted 
me to squeeze through, and I wondered whether, 
in another year, or ten, or fifty, the holes would - 
have grown smaller. I became imbued with the 
quiet joy of these roots, so that I hated to touch 
the ground. Once I stepped down on the beach 
after something I had dropped, and the soft 
yielding of the sand was so unpleasant that I 
did not afterwards leave this strange mid-zone 
until I had to return. Unlike Anteus, I seemed 
to gain strength and poise by disassociation with 
the earth. 
Here and there were pockets in the folds of 
the sweeping draperies, and each pocket was 
worth picking. When one tried to paint the 
roots, these pockets seemed made expressly to 
take the place of palette cups, except that now 
and then a crab resented the infusion of Hooker’s 
green with his Vandyke brown puddle, and seized 
