There is a mournful silence in the calmness of
the evening, when the tropical sun sinks upon the horizon--a conviction
that man has left this region undisturbed to its wild tenants.
No hum of
distant voices, no rumbling of busy wheels, no cries of domestic animals
meet the ear. He stands upon a wilderness, pathless and untrodden by the
foot of civilisation, where no sound is ever heard but that of the
elements, when the thunder rolls among the towering forests or the wind
howls along the plains. He gazes far, far into the distance, where the
blue mountains melt into an indefinite haze; he looks above him to the
rocky pinnacles which spring from the level plain, their swarthy cliffs
glistening from the recent shower, and patches of rich verdure clinging
to precipices a thousand feet above him. His eye stretches along the
grassy plains, taking at one full glance a survey of woods, and rocks,
and streams; and imperceptibly his mind wanders to thoughts of home, and
in one moment scenes long left behind are conjured up by memory, and
incidents are recalled which banish for a time the scene before him.
Lost for a moment in the enchanting power of solitude, where fancy and
reality combine in their most bewitching forms, he is suddenly roused by
a distant sound made doubly loud by the surrounding silence--the shrill
trumpet of an elephant. He wakes from his reverie; the reality of the
present scene is at once manifested.
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