Tide Marks by H.M. Tomlinson — Read

It is all very well, but one must pay for blundering carelessly through the hindrances which discourage most men from the central hills of Malaya. Yet a reward for being thus fatigued and sickened comes early every morning in the forest. The light of dawn might be-perhaps it is-merely the tranquillity and assurance of one's own spirit. What of that? The soaring palms, the green jib-sails of the giant arums, the pale shafts and lofty domes of the great trees, shine as though the radiance were theirs. Insects glance over the new blossoms in the clearing like vagrant prismatic rays. But the hills have gone. They have not returned with the morning. Where they were dominant last, sunset is but brilliant vacuity, which is regarded with astonishment, for hills certainly were there, and a river below them. And there the river still glides, past the wall of the forest opposite, in long inclines of flawless crystal and breaks of foam, over its shelves of granite; though now it is soundless because all the world is murmuring. But where are the hills? Where they rose opposite, standing over the valley in abrupt and gigantic shapes, is only a glimmering pallor, the luminous depth of emptiness, which thins upward into the blue of the sky. While surprise still stares at the place from which the hills have vanished, a fragment of the distant forest appears in midair, a miraculous satellite of earth, its tiny trees distinct in the upper blue. That translated wood grows downward as the jungle mist clears, till a shoulder of a dissolved hill has reformed.

Ryan cried breakfast, and by the time the pipes were lit all the hills had come back and the ecstatic dog was strangling a snake under the hut. Then we began to load a canoe-we waded in, guided it down clear canals between the rocks, brought it in to a steeply shelving beach, and packed it with pots and pans, a bag of mangosteens, and the provender for a long journey; enough to sink it to about an inch of freeboard when we had embarked, with two Malays, and Ryan's Chinaman to cook for us.