Ill NIGHT AND MORNING 35 
The Other night I felt too hot to sleep, and the 
singing buzz of the mosquitoes outside the curtains got on 
my nerves to such an extent that I put on my dressing- 
gown and slipped out into the moonlight. I went for 
some way along the river-bank, then down a pathway 
with dense jungle on both sides. Nature was all 
wrapped in sleep ; here and there through the foliage 
the moon cast strange shadows across the path. I 
startled some animal feeding on the fallen nuts, and it 
went off with a bound into the inky blackness of the 
shadows, some unseen night-bird uttered shrill cries, and 
the still air was heavy with the scent of spice trees and 
orchids. Nature has been almost too lavish in her 
gifts here. 
Then out of the belt of jungle again I went 
into a small space of more open ground. The soft 
gray dawn was just stealing along the horizon, and the 
gaunt skeletons of ringed trees, where fresh sugar-cane 
fields were being formed, stood out against the steely 
sky like grim sentinels at their post. Some of the 
birds were just b^inning to waken, and a lai^e casso- 
wary bounded away in front of me, the long-bladed 
grass was bent double with heavy dew, and remembering 
that I had already had a sharp warning against trifling 
with this tropical climate, I turned my face homewards 
again. No one was as yet astir here, and I crept into 
my room, fell asleep, and never woke or moved again 
until the sun was high above the tree-tops. 
It was a restless kind of day, too hot even to paint, 
and the atmosphere so moist that the very paints 
themselves wouldn't dry. From my window I made 
a sketch of the bend of the river, for we were close 
on its banks here ; two large green and black butter- 
flies floated lazily by as if they had only just been 
bom into the sunshine; they rested on a poinsettia. 
Digitized by LnOOQ IC 
