the foliage the eyes
of the jungle were looking upon us. Wherever I turned, I thought
I saw eyes. Kari swayed slightly from side to side and fell into
a doze. The first thing that I noticed was the faint call of a
night bird. When that died down, the hooting owl took it up. Then
it passed into the soft wings of the bats and came into the
leaves, and you could feel that noise shimmering down the trees
like water in a dream till, with gentle undulations, it
disappeared into the ground. The wild boar could be heard
grazing. Then there was silence again.

Out of the blackness then came the green eyes of the wild cat below me
and, as my eyes became more accustomed to the darkness, I saw small,
beaver-like animals burrowing their way through leaves and brushes. I
thought I saw weasels way below, and in the distance I felt the stag
disturbing the leaves of small plants. Then there was a snarl in the
jungle and these gently moving sounds and quivers ceased. An aching
silence came over everything, broken only by strange insect voices
like the spurting of water. Very soon the call of the fox was heard,
and then the groan of the tiger, but that passed. As I was above the
ground the odor of my breath went up in the air, and the animals never
knew there was man about. Men always disturb animals because they hate
and fear more than the animals.

Little by little the sounds died down and stillness took
possession of the jungle. I saw herds of elephants go into the
water to bathe. They did not make the slightest sound; their
bodies sank into the water as clouds dip into the sunset. I could
see them curling their trunks around their mates and plucking
lilies from the water to eat. As the moon with its shadowy light
had risen, I seemed to be looking at them through a veil of
water. Close to the shore were the little ones stepping into the
water and learning how to breathe quantities of water into their
trunks and then snort it out slowly without the slightest sound.
Soon their bath was over, but the only way you could tell that
they had bathed was by hearing drops of water like twinkling
stars fall from their wet bodies and strike the leaves on the
ground.

This proved too much for Kari; he wanted to follow them. I had a
hard time keeping him away from the herd, and despite all my
urging, he ran right into the river. His mattress and everything
that was tied to his back was wet through and through and I had
to swim ashore. If the