A PAY AND NIGHT ON THE AMAZON. 321 



taller trees, or the feathery, fan-shaped fronds of palms. For 

 a time the fresh breeze blows, hut flags under the increasing 

 I lower of the sun, and finally dies away, the heat and electric 

 tension of the atmosphere becoming almost insupportable. 



The heat increases as the day draws on. Languor and 

 uneasiness seize on every one; — even the denizens of the 

 forest betray it by their motions. By this time every voice 

 of bird or mammal is hushed. Only in the trees is heard 

 at intervals the whir of the cicada. The leaves, so soft 

 and fresh in the early morn, now become lax and drooping. 

 The flowers shut their petals. The natives, returning to their 

 huts, fall asleep in their hammocks, or, seated on mats in the 

 shade appear too languid even to talk. White clouds now 

 appear in the east, and gather into cumuli, with an increasing 

 blackness along their lower portions. The whole eastern 

 horizon becomes rapidly black, the dark hue spreading up- 

 wards. Even the sun is at length obscured. Then the rush 

 of a mighty wind is heard through the forest swaying the 

 tree-tops. A vivid flash of lightning bursts forth, then a 

 crash of thunder, and down streams the deluging rain. The 

 storm soon ceases, leaving the bluish-black motionless clouds 

 in the sky till night. Meantime all nature is refreshed, but. 

 heaps of flower petals and leaves are seen under the trees. 



Towards evening life revives again. The noises of the 

 forest animals begin just as the sun sinks behind the trees, 

 leaving the sky above of the intensest shade of blue. The 

 briefest possible twilight commences, and the sounds of multi- 

 farious life come from every quarter. Troops of howling- 

 monkeys, from their lofty habitations among the topmost 

 branches — some near, some at a distance- — fill the echoing forest 

 with their dismal noise ; flocks of parrots and blue macaws 



379; 21 



