2l8 TlMKHRl. v , 
promised to come in good time and act as our guide. 
But the boat was waiting, night meanwhile fast creeping 
nearer, and there was no sign of Daniel. 
So, there being no help for it, we went down stream 
to fetch our guide, and found him lying smoking in 
his hammock regardless, as is ever the habit of Indians, 
of time and of us, but perfectly willing and ready to come. 
Then, about six o'clock, we really started on our journey 
up stream. 
It was a splendid moonlight night, which is certainly 
the most favourable opportunity to see a tropical river. 
In the day time, the more splendid masses of the 
trees and the grander and more striking foliage is too 
evidently mixed with much of less noble character, and 
the whole effect is weakened and confused by this and 
by the general meanness and untidiness of the smaller 
features of tropical vegetation. But at night, when the 
tropical moon — a thing in itself fartoosplendidtobe more 
than faintly realized but by experience — is at its brightest, 
then the leaves which individually are the grandest and 
the hugest, such as those of palms and of wild plantains 
(Heliconia and Ravenala), and the trees most dis- 
tinguished by nobility of mass, such as the mora (M. 
excelsa), and the more regularly curtained creepers, are 
brought into utmost prominence and shown in sharpest 
out-line, while all meaner and smaller matter is merged 
in shadow masses of such blackness as serves, by won- 
derful contrast, to throw up and emphasize the brighter 
points. It was a night when blackest shadows and whitest 
lights were each most intense, that we travelled, 
between walls of splendidly massed lights and shades 
