There is, despite the myriad difficulties it presents at every hand, an element of fascination about a tropical forest unlike anything else, though perhaps the chief pleasure lies in looking forward to getting out of it. A great silence hangs over everything, and seems only greater for the extraordinary and often unaccountable sounds which break in upon it at intervals, ye mingled with those more familiar, such as the harsh shriek of the toucan, the chatter of an occasional monkey, or the crash of a falling branch or tree. Still, despite all its strange sounds, the forest silence is oppressive, and makes itself so much felt that the different members of a caravan generally speak in whispers, or in low tones, and the slightest noise on either side of the way will turn instinctively every head.

There seems a complete