Page 304 - Malay sketches

MALAY SKETCHES

colours fade from sky and sea, only the shore-line
keeps its sheen. Then this too dies, and great
white clouds, coming from out the mines and
marshes like a troop of giant spectres risen in their
grave-clothes, stalk slowly round the foothills of
the mountain, through the Pass into the valley of
the Perak River.
Here, at this elevation, the night is not quite
yet.
Close around us still the jungle, but the trees are
dwarfed, the boughs are covered with moss and
lichen, orchids and ferns flourish in the forks, gor-
geously blossomed creepers twine round the branches
and hang from tree to tree. The air is full of the
scent of the magnolia, the moss-carpeted ground is
gay with a myriad flowers, some brilliantly plumaged
songless birds flit silently between the trees, and a
great bat sails aimlessly across the waning light.
The shrill scream of the cicada is but faintly heard
far down the height, and night comes, like a closing
hand grasping in resistless darkness all things
visible. The only sound to break the silence is the
fitful and plaintive croak of a wood-frog.
If night treads closely on the heels of day, there
is no need for regret. The darkness is but for a
moment, and over the eastern peaks spreads a
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