water reminded us that the alligator was still our neighbor; and ever
there was the piping of wild birds whose notes we had never heard
before, and whose outlines were as fantastic as those of the bright
objects that glorify an antique Japanese screen.

Once from the shore, a canoe shot out of the shadow and approached us.
It was a log hollowed out--only the shell remained. Within it sat two
Indians,--not the dark creatures we had grown familiar with down the
river; these also were nearly nude, but with the picturesque nudeness
that served only to set off the ornaments with which they had adorned
themselves--necklaces of shells, wristlets and armlets of bright metal,
wreaths of gorgeous flowers and the gaudy plumage of the flamingo. They
drew near us for a moment, only to greet us and turn away; and very
soon, with splash of dipping paddles, they vanished in the dusk.

These were the flowers of the forest. All the winding way from the sea
the river walls had been decked with floral splendor. Gigantic blossoms
that might shame a rainbow starred the green spaces of the wood; but of
all we had seen or heard or felt or dreamed of, none has left an
impression so vivid, so inspiring, so instinct with the beauty and the
poetry and the music of the tropics, as those twilight mysteries that
smiled upon us for a moment and vanished, even as the great fire-flies
that paled like golden rockets in the dark.




III.

ALONG THE PACIFIC SHORE