SEQUELS 277. 
gone, the landscape had closed in, the wilderness 
was shutting down. . Nature herself was “letting 
in the jungle.” I felt like Rip Van Winkle, or 
even more alien, as if the passing of time had 
been accelerated and my longed-for leap had 
been accomplished, beyond the usual ken of man- 
kind’s earthly lease of senses. 
All these astounding changes had come to pass 
through the heat and moisture of a tropical year, 
and under deliberate scientific calculation there 
was nothing unusual in the alteration. I remem- 
bered the remarkable growth of one of the labor- 
atory bamboo shoots during the rainy season— 
twelve and a half feet in sixteen days, but that 
was a single stem like a blade of grass, whereas 
here the whole landscape was altered—new birds, 
new insects, branches, foliage, flowers, where 
twelve short months past, was open sky above 
low weeds. 
In the hollow root on the beach, my band of 
crane-flies had danced for a thousand hours, but 
here was a sound which had apparently never 
ceased for more than a year—perhaps five thou- 
hand hours of daylight. It was a low, penetrat- 
ing, abruptly reiterated beat, occurring about 
once every second and a half, and distinctly audi- 
