164 A NATURALIST'S WANDERINGS 



in words how anxiously I nursed that fledgling fire ; how 

 tenderly I held it in the hollow of my hands while my " boy " 

 fanned it gently ; when it had grown a little, how we reared it 

 in a hat before transplanting it to the ground where it almost 

 expired from its cold touch, but the immense native umbrella- 

 like hat shielded it till it was able to take care of itself. 

 All hands were then roused to gather wood, and we had at 

 length the satisfaction of feeling that the tigers would give us 

 a wide berth, and no elephant, unless a rogue, would trample 

 us down. Except a handful of rice at the ford, neither myself 

 nor my men had tasted food since dawn, and, possessing a fire, 

 Ave were hopeful that we might cook also ; but, of course, 

 the eatables were in the other part of the baggage ! ^rhere 

 was nothing, therefore, to be done but to sit down with what 

 patience each could command and wait for morning. 



If things were the opposite of comfortable or bright for my 

 companions, I myself felt not a little compensated by the 

 singular appearance of the forest, which was everywhere phos- 

 phorescent. The stem of every tree blinked with a pale 

 greenish-white light, which undulated also across the surface 

 of the ground like moonlight coming and going behind the 

 clouds — from a minute threadlike fungus invisible in the day- 

 time to the unassisted eye ; and here and there thick dumpy 

 mushrooms displayed a sharp clear dome of light, whose 

 intensity never varied or changed till the break of day ; long 

 phosphorescent caterpillars and centipedes crawled out of 

 every corner, leaving • a trail of light behind them, while fire- 

 flies darted about above like a lower firmament. Trying to 

 conceive what were the respective benefits conferred by this 

 wonderful luminosity on these so widely separated species 

 of living things, I dozed off to the lullaby of the weird forest 

 moan, the clanging " kang-kang " of the horned frogs, and 

 the not unmelodious wail of some night bird. 



Break of the next day showed us in what a miserable spot 

 we had encamped — on the edge of a rocky cliff, under the 

 drip of the trees, not below their shade. We gathered together 

 the scattered articles of baggage, which had been deposited 

 anywhere and everywhere. Near me, hanging by its feet 

 to a carrying-pole dead, drowned by the rain, I found the 

 fowl for which I groped about, listening for its cackle 



