Part 1 (2/2)
JUNGLE PEACE
After creeping through slime-filled holes beneath the shrieking of swift metal, after splas.h.i.+ng one's plane through companionable clouds three miles above the little jagged, hero-filled ditches, and dodging other sudden-born clouds of nauseous fumes and blasting heart of steel; after these, one craves thoughts of comfortable hens, sweet apple orchards, or ineffable themes of opera. And when nerves have cried for a time 'enough' and an unsteady hand threatens to turn a joy stick into a sign post to Charon, the mind seeks amelioration--some symbol of worthy content and peace--and for my part, I turn with all desire to the jungles of the tropics.
If one looks the jungle straight in the face and transcribes what is seen, there is evolved technical science, and until this can be done with accuracy and discretion, one can never feel worthy now and then, of stealing quietly up a side aisle of the great green wonderland, and, as I have done in these pages, looking obliquely at all things, observing them as actors and companions rather than as species and varieties; softening facts with quiet meditation, leavening science with thoughts of the sheer joy of existence. It should be possible occasionally to achieve this and yet to return to science enriched and with enthusiasm, and again to play some little part in the great physical struggle--that wonderful strife which must give to future peace and contentment new appreciation, a worthier enjoyment.
It is possible to enter a jungle and become acutely aware of poison fang and rending claw--much as a pacifist considers the high adventure of righteous war. But it is infinitely more wonderful and altogether satisfying to slip quietly and receptively into the life of the jungle, to accept all things as worthy and reasonable; to sense the beauty, the joy, the majestic serenity of this age-old fraternity of nature, into whose sanctuary man's entrance is unnoticed, his absence unregretted.
The peace of the jungle is beyond all telling.
II
SEA-WRACK
Suspended in the naked air eight thousand feet above New York, I look down and see the city and its inhabitants merged into one. From this height the metropolis is less interesting and hardly more noticeable than many tropical ants' nests which have come under my observation.
Circling slowly earthward, I have watched the city split apart into its canyon streets, and have finally distinguished the caterpillars which I knew were trains, and the black beetles which must be automobiles. Last, and apparently least, were resolved a mult.i.tude of tiny specks, weird beings all hats and legs, which were undoubtedly the makers and owners of these beetles and worms and canyons.
In many similar bird's-eye-views of the city one phase of activity always amuses and thrills. Circling as low as I dare, b.u.mped and jolted by the surging uprush of invisible spouts of warm air, I head, like a frigate-bird, straight into the teeth of the wind and hang for a time parallel with the streaming lines of gray and white smoke. Near the margin of the city where the glittering water reaches long fingers in between the wharves, a crowd of people push, antwise, down to the brink.
Many burdened individuals pa.s.s and repa.s.s over slender bridges or gang-planks, for all the world like leaf-cutting ants transporting their booty over twigs and gra.s.s stems. Then comes a frantic waving of antennae, (or are they handkerchiefs), and finally part of the wharf detaches itself and is slowly separated from the city. Now I can mount higher to a less dangerous alt.i.tude and watch the s.h.i.+p become a drifting leaf, then a floating mote, to vanish at last over a curve of the world.
I cease chuckling into the roar of my motor; my amus.e.m.e.nt becomes all thrill. The G.o.ds s.h.i.+ft and change: Yoharneth-Lahai leaves me, and in his place comes Slid, with the hand of Roon beside me on the wheel. I hasten hangarwards with the gulls which are beating towards their roosting sands of far Long Island beaches.
On some future day I in my turn, scurry up a gang-plank laden with my own particular bundles, following days of haste and nights of planning.
I go out on the upper deck of the vessel, look upward at a gull and think of the amusing side of all the fuss and preparation, the farewells, the departure, which sufficient perspective gives. And then I look ahead, out toward the blue-black ocean, and up again to the pa.s.sing gulls, and the old, yet ever new thrill of travel, of exploration, possesses me. Even if now the thrill is shared by none other, if I must stand alone at the rail watching the bow dip to the first swell outside the harbor, I am yet glad to be one of the ants which has escaped from the turmoil of the great nest, to drift for a while on this tossing leaf.
At the earnest of winter--whether biting frost or flurry of snowflakes--a woodchuck mounts his little moraine of trampled earth, looks about upon the saddening world, disapproves, and descends to his long winter's sleep. An exact parallel may be observed in the average pa.s.senger. As the close perspective of home, of streets, of terrestrial society slips away, and his timid eyes gaze upon the unwonted sight of a horizon--a level horizon un.o.bstructed by any obstacles of man's devising, mental and physical activity desert him: he hibernates. He swathes himself, larva-like--in many wrappings, and encases himself in the angular coc.o.o.ns furnished for the purpose at one dollar each by the deck steward; or he haunts the smoking room, and under the stimulus of unaccustomed beverages enters into arguments at levels of intelligence and logic which would hardly tax the powers of Pithecanthropus or a Bushman.
From the moment of sailing I am always impressed with the amusing terrestrial instincts of most human beings. They leave their fellows and the very wharf itself with regret, and no sooner are they surrounded by old ocean than their desires fly ahead to the day of freedom from this transitory aquatic prison. En route, every thought, every worry, every hope is centripetal. The littlenesses of s.h.i.+p life are magnified to subjects of vital importance, and so perennial and enthusiastic are these discussions that it seems as if the neighbor's accent, the daily dessert, the sempiternal post-mortem of the bridge game, the home life of the stewardess, must contain elements of greatness and goodness. With a few phonograph records it would not be a difficult matter to dictate in advance a satisfactory part in the average conversation at the Captain's table. The subjects, almost without exception, are capable of prediction, the remarks and points of view may be antic.i.p.ated.
Occasionally a pa.s.senger detaches his mind from the s.h.i.+p and its doings long enough to take note of something happening beyond the rail--some cosmic phenomenon which he indicates with unerring finger as a beautiful sunset, frequently rea.s.suring himself of our recognition by a careful enumeration of his conception of the colors. Or a school of dolphins undulates through two mediums, and is announced, in a commendably Adam-like, but quite inaccurate spirit, as porpoises or young whales.
Mercury, setting laggardly in the west, is gilded anew by our informant as a lights.h.i.+p, or some phare off Cape Imagination. We shall draw a veil or go below, when an ”average citizen” begins to expound the stars and constellations.
All this is only amusing, and with the limited interest in the s.h.i.+p and the trip which the usual pa.s.senger permits himself, he still derives an amazing amount of pleasure from it all. It is a wonderful child-like joy, whether of convincingly misnaming stars, enthusiastically playing an atrocious game of shuffle-board, or estimating the s.h.i.+p's log with methods of cunning mathematical accuracy, but hopeless financial results. All these things I have done and shall doubtless continue to do on future voyages, but there is an additional joy of striving to break with precedent, to concentrate on the alluring possibilities of new experiences, new discoveries, on board s.h.i.+p.
If the vessel is an oasis in a desert, or in a ”waste of waters” as is usually announced at table about the second or third day out, then I am a true Arab, or, to follow more closely the dinner simile, a Jonah of sorts, for my interest is so much more with the said waste, or the things in it and above it, than with my swathed, hibernating fellow mortals.
Precedent on board s.h.i.+p is not easily to be broken, and much depends on the personality of the Captain. If he has dipped into little-known places all over the world with which you are familiar, or if you show appreciation of a Captain's point of view, the battle is won. A few remarks about the difficulty of navigation of Nippon's Inland Sea, a rebuke of some thoughtless idiot at table who hopes for a storm; such things soon draw forth casual inquiries on his side, and when a Captain begins to ask questions, the freedom of the chart-room is yours, and your unheard-of requests which only a naturalist could invent or desire, will not fail of fulfilment.
I am off on a voyage of two weeks to British Guiana and I begin to ponder the solution of my first problem. The vessel plows along at a ten-knot rate, through waters teeming with interesting life and stopping at islands where every moment ash.o.r.e is of thrilling scientific possibility. By what means can I achieve the impossible and study the life of this great ocean as we slip rapidly through it--an ocean so all-encompa.s.sing, yet to a pa.s.senger, so inaccessible.
Day after day I scan the surface for momentary glimpses of cetaceans, and the air for pa.s.sing sea birds. Even the rigging, at certain seasons, is worth watching as a resting place for migrating birds. The extreme bow is one of the best points of vantage, but the spot of all spots for an observer is the appropriately named crow's nest, high up on the foremast. You have indeed won the Captain over to your bizarre activities when he accords permission to climb the swaying ratlines and heave yourself into that wonderful place. It is tame enough when compared with piloting a plane among the clouds, but it presents an enormous expanse of ocean compared with the humble deck view. Here you can follow the small whales or blackfish down and down long after they have sounded; with your binoculars you can see every detail of the great floating turtles. And when the sun sinks in glory which is terrible in its grandeur, you may let it fill your senses with wordless ecstasy, without fear of interpretive interruption. Save for the other matchstick mast and the spider-web ratlines, the horizon is unbroken.
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