[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

216 WITH NATIVES IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC

so that everything shines in the white light, the long,
flat point, the forest; even the bread—fruit tree on the
slepe, whose outline cuts sharply into the brightness,
is not black, but a darker silver. In the greenish
sky the stars glitter, not sharply as they do else-
where, but like fine dots, softly, quietly, as if a
negligent hand had sprinkled them lightly about.
And down by the water the breakers roll, crickets
cry, a flying—fox chatters and changes from one tree
to the other with tired Wings, passing in a shapeless
silhouette in front of the moon. It is the peace of
paradise, dreamlike, wishless; one never tires of
listening to the holy tropical night, for there is secret
life everywhere. In the quiet air the trees shiver,
the moonlight trembles in the bushes and stirs im-
perceptibly in the lawn; and from the indistinct
sounds of which the mind is hardly conscious the
fancy weaves strange stories. We see all those
creatures that frighten the natives under the roof
of the forest, giants with crabs’ claws, men with fiery
eyes, women that turn into deadly serpents, vague,
misty souls of ancestors, that pass through the
branches and appear to their descendants; all that
we dream of in our northern midsummer night wakes
in tenfold strength here.

Suddenly, violent shocks shake the house, ex—
plosions follow, like distant shots, and the thin, misty
silver is changed to a red glow. The volcano is in
action,—a dull, reddish-yellow light mounts slowly
up behind the black trees, thick smoke rises and
rises, until it stands, a dark monster, nearly touching