bey that unforgotten advice
of one's youth, "Oh, g'wan--crawl into a hole and pull the hole in
after you!" At an early age, this unnatural advice held my mind, so
that I devised innumerable means of verifying it; I was filled with a
despair and longing whenever I met it anew. But it was an ambition
appeased only in maturity. And this is the miracle of the tropics:
climb up into the hamaca, and, at this altitude, draw in the hole of
the mosquitaro funnel, making it fast with a single knot. It is done.
One is at rest, and lying back, listens to the humming of all the
mosquitoes in the world, to be lulled to sleep by the sad, minor
singing of their myriad wings. But though I have slung my hammock in
many lands, on all the continents, I have few memories of netting
nights. Usually, both in tropics and in tempered climes, one may
boldly lie with face uncovered to the night.

And this brings us to the greatest joy of hammock life, admission to
the secrets of the wilderness, initiation to new intimacies and
subtleties of this kingdom, at once welcomed and delicately ignored
as any honored guest should be. For this one must make unwonted
demands upon one's nocturnal senses. From habit, perhaps, it is
natural to lie with the eyes wide open, but with all the faculties
concentrated on the two senses which bring impressions from the world
of darkness--hearing and smell. In a jungle hut a loud cry from out of
the black treetops now and then reaches the ear; in a tent the faint
noises of the night outside are borne on the wind, and at times the
silhouette of a passing animal moves slowly across the heavy cloth;
but in a hamaca one is not thus set apart to be baffled by hidden
mysteries--one is given the very point of view of the creatures who
live and die in the open.

Through the meshes which press gently against one's face comes every
sound which our human ears can distinguish and set apart from the
silence--a silence which in itself is only a mirage of apparent
soundlessness, a testimonial to the imperfection of our senses. The
moaning and whining of some distant beast of prey is brought on the
breeze to mingle with the silken swishing of the palm fronds overhead
and the insistent chirping of many insects--a chirping so fine and
shrill that it verges upon the very limits of our hearing. And these,
combined, unified, are no more than the ground surge beneath the
countless waves of sound. For the voice of the jungle is the voice o