is also said that real witches and wizards, though subject to the most
ticklish tests, never perspired--a default which hastened conviction.
Therein is my hope of salvation. If it be my fate some day to be found


"With age grown double,
Picking dry sticks and mumbling to myself."


I shall claim a profuse prerogative, and continue to saunter down into
the gloom at the foot of the hill of life unblinking in the sun.




CHAPTER IV



SILENCES


"Who has not hearkened to Her infinite din?"--THOREAU.

Free alike from the clatter of pastimes and the creaks and groans of
labour, this region discovers acute sensibility to sound. Silence in its
rarest phases soothes the Isle, reproaching disturbances, though never so
temperate. All the endemic sounds are primitive and therefore seldom
harsh. Even the mysterious fall of a tree in the jungle--not an unusual
occurrence on still days during the wet season--is unaccompanied by thud