LIFE IN FOREIGN LANDS. 
417 
winter; while the second can only be compared to our 
spring. Each is opposed to the other, inasmuch as the 
one destroys, and the other generates life: the power of 
generation, however, exceeds that of destruction. The 
productive agent is water; the destructive one is the sun, 
together with the south wind. Water is the well-spring 
of life in the primaeval forest,—not the river, nor the lake, 
but the discharge amid thunder and lightning from the 
dark heavy clouds which hang suspended like a pall over 
the land during the rainy season, enveloping the whole 
country, as it were, in one sheet of falling water. The 
spontaneous life thus generated cannot be even conceived 
by one who has not travelled in the tropics: the earth, 
burnt, scorched and blistered for months by the glowing 
rays of the sun, springs to new life; the power of the 
elements for good is manifested, as it were, by magic: 
the flood appears like a magician from Paradise sent 
to replenish the earth. The first drops awaken the 
plant-world from the death-like sleep into which it has 
been cast and held bound by the drought. After the first 
shower the parched ground is covered with a carpet of 
green, the trees renew their foliage, and everything now 
revels in plenty. The tops of the densely-leaved mimosas 
are interlaced with a veil of creepers, whose blossoms 
are radiant with equatorial splendour; flowers and fruits 
sparkle like jewels; on all sides insects burst from their 
chrysalides, and awaken from the dull, dream-like exist¬ 
ence of their former state to the brighter pleasures of 
active life, humming and skimming from tree to tree, 
while the native birds prepare to build their nests. From 
every bush one hears a note, and extraordinary sounds 
from above strike on the ear, though the eye cannot detect 
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the musician. Plants and animals live and bloom once 
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