Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/241

 incredibly loud, discordant, yet clear—rings out across the valleys, waking a thousand echoes, and the cry is taken up and thrown backward and forward from hill-cap to hill-cap. Judging by the frequency and the ubiquity of their yells, the argus pheasants must be very numerous in the jungles of the interior. but so deftly do they hide themselves that they are rarely seen, and the magnificence of their plumage, which rivals that of the peacock, is only familiar to us because the birds are often trapped by the Malays.

At the spot where Kûlop and his Sâkai lay the trees grew sparsely. The last two hundred feet of the ascent had been a severe climb, and the ridge, which formed the summit, stood clear of the tree-tops which had their roots halfway up the slope. As he lay panting Kûlop Sûmbing gazed down for the first time upon the eastern side of the Peninsula. the theatre in which ere long he proposed to play a very daring part. At his feet were tree-tops of every shade of green, from the tender, brilliant colour which we associate with young corn to the deep and sombre hue which is almost black. The forest fell away beneath him in a broad slope, the contour of each individual tree, and the gray, white, or black lines which marked their trunks or branches growing less and less distinct, until the jungle covering the plain became a blurred wash of colour that had more of blue than green in it. Here and there, very far away. the sunlight smote something that answered with a dazzling flash, like the mirror of a