214 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 
shrill that it verges upon the very limits of our 
hearing. And these, combined, unified, are no 
more than the ground surge beneath the countless 
waves of sound. For the voice of the jungle is 
the voice of love, of hatred, of hope, of despair— 
and in the night-time, when the dominance of 
sense-activity shifts from eye to ear, from retina 
to nostril, it cries aloud its confidences to all the 
world. But the human mind is not equal to a 
true understanding of these; for in a tropical 
jungle the birds and the frogs, the beasts and the 
insects are sending out their messages so swiftly 
one upon the other, that the senses fail of their 
mission and only chaos and a great confusion are 
carried to the brain. ‘The whirring of invisible 
wings and the movement of the wind in the low 
branches become one and the same: it is an epic, 
told in some strange tongue, an epic filled to 
overflowing with tragedy, with poetry and mys- 
tery. The cloth of this drama is woven from 
many-colored threads, for Nature is lavish with 
her pigment, reckless with life and death. She 
is generous because there is no need for her to be 
miserly. And in the darkness, I have heard the 
working of her will, translating as best I could. 
In the darkness, I have at times heard the 
