80 APES AND MONKEYS 



blinding. The thunder is terrific. One shaft after another, 

 the burning bolts are hurled through the moaning forest. 



Down the frail wires of my cage the water runs in little 

 rivulets. Acting as a prism, it refracts the vivid lightning 

 and makes the whole fabric look like a latticework of 

 molten fire trickling down from the overhanging boughs. 

 Like invisible demons the shrieking winds rush through 

 the bending forest, and the unceasing roar of the thunder 

 reverberates from the dark recesses of the jungle. Amid 

 the din of storming forces is heard the dull thud of falling 

 trees, and the crackling limbs are dropping all around. All 

 nature is in a rage. Every bird and every beast now seeks 

 a place of refuge from the warring elements. No sign of 

 life is visible. No sound is audible save the voice of the 

 storm. How unspeakably desolate the jungle is at such an 

 hour no fancy can depict. How utterly helpless against 

 the wrath of nature a living creature is no one can realize, 

 except by living through such an hour in such a place. 



On one occasion five larsre trees were blown down within 

 a radius of a few hundred feet of my cage. Scores of 

 limbs were broken off by the wind and scattered like 

 straws. Some of them were six or eight inches in diame- 

 ter and ten or twelve feet long. One of them broke the 

 corner of the bamboo roof over my cage. The limb was 

 broken off a huge cotton tree near bv and fell from a height 

 of about sixty feet. It was carried bv the wind some yards 

 out of a vertical line as it fell, and just passed far enough 

 to spare my cage. Had it struck the body of it, the cage 

 would have been partly demolished ; the main stem of the 

 bough was about six inches in diameter and ten feet long. 



