ATLANTIC READINGS
Number 3
JUNGLE NIGHT
BY
WILLIAM BEEBE
The Atlantic Monthly Press
BOSTON
Copyright, 1918, by
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS
(Jungle Night is one of the eighteen essays published in the
Atlantic Classics, Second Series)
Within gun-reach in front of me trudged mylittle Akawai Indian hunter. He turned his headsuddenly, his ears catching some sound whichmine had missed, and I saw that his profile wasrather like that of Dante. Instantly the thoughtspread and the simile deepened. Were we twonot all alone? and this unearthly hour and light—ThenI chuckled softly, but the silence that thechuckle shattered shrank away and made it aloud, coarse sound, so that I involuntarily drewin my breath. But it was really amusing, thethought of Dante setting out on a hunt for kinkajousand giant armadillos. Jeremiah looked atme wonderingly, and we went on in silence. Andfor the next mile Dante vanished from mythoughts and I mused upon the sturdy little redman. Jeremiah was his civilized name; he wouldnever tell me his real one. It seemed so unsuitedto him that I thought up one still less appropriateand called him Nupee—which is the three-toed[2]sloth; and in his quiet way he saw the humorof it, for a more agile human being never lived.
Nupee’s face was unclouded, but his positionas hunter to our expedition had brought decisionsand responsibilities which he had not known before.The simple life,—the unruffled existencein the little open benab, with hammock, cassavafield, and an occasional hunt,—this was of thepast. A wife had come, slipping quietly into hislife, Indian-fashion; and now, before the baby arrived,decisions had to be made. Nupee longedfor some store shoes and a suit of black clothes.He had owned a big benab which he himself hadbuilt; but a godmother, like the cowbird in awarbler’s nest, had gradually but firmly oustedhim and had filled it with diseased relatives, sothat it was unpleasant to visit. He now, to myknowledge, owned a single shirt and a pair ofshort trousers.
The shoes were achieved. I detected in himqualities which I knew that I should find in someone, as I do on every expedition, and I made himperform so