FUHTEEE EXPERIENCES OF MR. FEESH„ 
tbe hill face of a newly-burnt clearing without his shoes. 
The well-paved crossings now in general existence 
over streams and ravines were altogether unknown ; 
the general crossings in use were, ‘‘ cross where and 
as you can ; ” if it was a w^et day and your shoes and 
socks were soaked through, it did not matter, for 
your feet could not be wetter than they were. If 
the day was dry and hot, crossing the streams would 
cool the feet, and from the heat of the sun above, 
and the ground below, they would soon dry again ; 
indeed, we have sometimes voluntarily subjected our 
feet to this immersion, and when it was quite pos- 
sible and easy to cross a stream dry shod, have 
plunged our feet into a pool of water, and allowed 
them to remain there for a few minutes; for the 
time being it also softened the hard leather shoes, 
but only for a very short time, as the heat of the 
sun speedily dried up the leather, and rendered them 
much harder than before. But there was a very con- 
venient crossing, which cost nothing at all, and pro- 
bably is still in temporary use in some new clearings 
of the present time. An aged monarch of the forest, 
whose spreading branches had towered over all his 
fellows, when growing on the banks of some stream 
or small river in the rich soil adjoining which its 
roots had caught a firm hold, and the huge trunk 
Iiad bended over in grateful acknowledgment to the 
rill that supplied it with nourishment ; briefly, the 
lean of the huge tree had been over the stream, 
so that when it was felled it lay over it in the 
form of a bridge, tbe lower end of the trunk resting 
on one side, and the top on tbe other, so that with- 
out descending and ascending the banks of the river 
at all, one could walk across on the tree and escape 
all the very unpleasant scramble, and also preserve 
his feet dry. Our first attempt at crossing a tree 
Iwidge is still vivid in our memory, and it was this. 
Having mustered the coolies and sent them off to 
hole, we called the “ boy and asked him if that coffee 
was ready; the speedy response was ‘‘Yes, sar,” 
which was sharply followed up by a very sharp and 
rather angry order to “bring;” but although the 
coffee was pronounced to be ready and tbe order was 
given to bring it, it was not brought. This dilatory 
state of matters of course produced more angry shouts, 
which were followed up by a hollow voice proceed- 
ing from a dense mass of white smoke in the kitchen, 
“Coming, sar.’’ But the owner of that voice did not 
come; on the contrary, the breaking and cracking 
of firewood, and the noise made in blowdng through 
a piece of hollow bambu, w^hich was in use in the 
kitchen as a bellows, told as plain as s^’-eech that no 
