Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/400

A hurried meal soon after the dawn had broken; a long tramp from village to village while daylight lasted; a swim in the river; a huge plate of rice and curry, cooked by the womenfolk of the place and caten with a hunter's appetite; a smoke and a yarn with the elders of the place, pieturesque figures grouped around one in a semicircle, chewing betel nut, as the placid cattle masticate the end; a dis- pute or two, perhaps, settled between smoke and smoke, without any magisterial formalities; a shred or two of information picked up here and there upon matters which would some day be of importance; and then sound, soul-satisfying sleep, and early waking, and another long day of labour and of life. By boat and raft on rivers small or great; tramping through the gloomy depths of forests hitherto un- explored by white men or across rice-swamps sizzling in the midday heat; camping at night in my boat on the river, in a headman's house under the peaked roof of a little village mosque, or in some crop watcher's laut; sleeping out on a sandbank, or on the ground in the dead jungle, with my mat spread upon a bed of bonghis and with a green palm-leaf shelter to ward off the worst of the drenching dews; shooting rapids, paddling down or poling up the rivers; skimming the cream of inviolate snipe grounds, or watching for game on the edge of a salt-lick-however I travelled, wherever I stayed or halted, no matter who the strange folk with whom I daily consorted, I tasted to the full the joys of a complete independence, the delights of fresh, open air and hard exercise, and