212 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 
some small marauder. It is then that a miracle 
is enacted. For one is at last enabled, under 
these propitious circumstances, to achieve the 
impossible, to contro] and manipulate the void 
and the invisible, to obey that unforgotten advice 
of one’s youth, “Oh, g’wan—crawl into a hole 
and pull the hole in after you!” At an early age, 
this unnatural advice held my mind, so that I 
devised innumerable means of verifying it; I 
was filled with a despair and longing whenever I 
met it anew. But it was an ambition appeased 
only in maturity. And this is the miracle of the 
tropics: climb up into the hamaca, and, at this 
altitude, draw in the hole of the mosquitaro fun- 
nel, making it fast with a single knot. It is done. 
One is at rest, and lying back, listens to the hum- 
ming of all the mosquitos in the world, to be 
lulled to sleep by the sad, minor singing of their 
myriad wings. But though I have slung my 
hammock in many lands, on all the continents, 
I have few memories of netting nights. Usually, 
both in tropics and in tempered climes, one may 
boldly lie with face uncovered to the night. - 
And this brings us to the greatest joy of ham- 
mock life, admission to the secrets of the wilder- 
ness, initiation to new intimacies and subtleties 
