HAMMOCK NIGHTS 201 
elastic strands and bounced upon my body. 
There was an ominous swish of the air in the 
sweeping arc which this missile described, also 
a goodly shower of leaves; and since the fusillade 
took place at midnight, it was, all in all, a some- 
what alarming visitation. However, there were 
no honorable scars to mark its advent; and what 
is more important, from all my hundreds of ham- 
mock nights, I have no other memory of any 
actual or threatened danger which was not due 
to human carelessness or stupidity. It is true 
that once, in another continent, by the light of 
a campfire, I saw the long, liana-like body of a 
harmless tree-snake wind down from one of my 
fronded bed-posts and, like a living woof fol- 
lowing its shuttle, weave a passing pattern of 
emerald through the pale meshes. But this her- 
alded no harm, for the poisonous reptiles of that 
region never climb; and so, since I was worn 
out by a hard day, I shut my eyes and slept 
neither better nor worse because of the transient 
confidence of a neighborly serpent. 
As a matter of fact, the wilderness provides 
but few real perils, and in a hammock one is 
safely removed from these. One lies in a stratum 
above all damp and chill of the ground, be- 
