V 
NATURE’S NIGHTLY REVELS 
5i 
ing expedition. The heat had become intense, and under 
the thick cover and shade of these woods there was a 
death-like silence in these mid-day hours. On one 
of the steepest slopes of the cliffs one of our men found 
a rare coral-tree blossom and he afterwards climbed to 
the top of a tall forest tree for a beautiful yellow Cassia 
that hung in drooping yellow sprays and thin brown 
pods fourteen inches long. We came home laden with 
treasures ; but I am too early here, they say, as I was, 
they told me, too late everywhere else for the flowers. 
As we came home with the setting sun nature was 
beginning her nightly revels : birds overhead were 
retracing their way home, and as darkness descended 
flying-foxes launched themselves from where during the 
day they hung suspended from branches, owls with soft, 
downy wings flitted silently across the pale sky. Moths 
issuing from dark retreats take the place of butterflies, 
bats wheel from right to left in rapid circles, booming 
beetles with jerking strength of will dart recklessly 
against the trees, and crickets add their shrill voices to 
swell the din. Under the deep shadows we trod over 
things of sickening softness, and the inexplicable rustle 
of mysterious beings is so little reassuring that it was 
with a feeling of satisfaction that we struck the cleared 
pathway leading home. 
And now, with happy appetites satisfied, we settled 
ourselves comfortably in our lounge chairs on the 
verandah for the evening, and they told me that, that 
very afternoon, high revelry had been going on in the 
native camp, as they feasted off the roasted remains 
of an old woman who had been allowed, against their 
usual custom, to die a natural death the day before. 
Just as we were on our way to bed we heard the cackle 
of a fowl close beside the house, the unmistakable cry, 
growing fainter and fainter, of one being crushed to 
