Rubber. Edith A. Browne

There is a wish that has so taken possession of us that it is beginning to make our hearts ache. Happily, we are living in the everything-is-possible days of Once Upon a Time. Directly that wish begins seriously to worry us, Mother Witch realizes that here is a case in which her services are needed, and forthwith she hurries to our midst to see what she can do to make us happy and content.

“Carry us away on your broomstick,” we beg, “to some new land, where we can see people using something which we know nothing whatever about at present, but which will one day bring to pass a great revolution throughout the whole wide world.”

Says Mother Witch:

“You civilized mortals have yet so many lands to discover, so much to learn from the folk who dwell therein. I could take you to many a strange country where you would see the mere savage turning the simplest of Nature’s gifts to marvellous account. Some day more extraordinary uses will be found for these same things by the only kind of people you think clever. But when that day dawns, such things will soon become common, and their power of usefulness will quickly come to be taken as a matter of course. In this way is all wonder being banished from the earth by the civilization you’re so pleased to call wise. But I’m not here to preach to you. Come, I will take you to a country where everything is yet as Dame Nature made it. It is a country full of possibilities, abounding in natural wonders whose discovery may create many and many a mighty change in the everyday life of the world at large. More than this, I will promise you nothing. You shall see what you see. Let us away.”

We are whisked across the sea. At length we are hovering over a seemingly boundless forest, which appears to defy even a single ray of light to pry into its secrets. As we get nearer to the treetops, we notice that parts of the country beneath us are open to the sky. A river, inset with islands and sandbanks, completely severs the forest; a goodly number of streams fight their way into it on either side, now boiling with rage as their passage is interfered with by a stubborn array of rocks, now dashing headlong over a sheer precipice, now corkscrewing a long way round to avoid impenetrable barriers; and, in addition to the breaches made in the forest fortress by these waters, there are patches of grassland openly rejoicing in the sun. Mother Witch assures us that in parts of its course the chief river is five, ten, or even as much as fifteen miles wide; that the sandbanks and islands we see in it are of enormous size; that the patches of grassland cover acres and acres of ground. Of course, she knows what she is talking about, so, in accepting her word about the size of the openings, we are better able to realize the immensity of the mass. For, in a bird’s-eye view, all the features of a landscape are seen in proportion; and as we look from aloft at this country we have come to visit, the outstanding feature is a wilderness which Nature designed as a citadel wherein she could reign supreme, and which, since the days of the Great Beginning of all things, she has fortified against any human desire to interfere with her own imagination and power of achievement.

We drop to earth in this country, landing in the heart of the forest. Now there is no trace of an outlet to be seen. Surely we are prisoners—but which of us, at this moment, would care to escape, even were we shown a way? In the wildest revels of dreamland we have never beheld anything so luxuriously beautiful as the scene of reality which now surrounds us. Multitudes of giant trees burst the bonds of thickly tangled undergrowth, only to be fettered again up to their very summits, a hundred feet or more above our heads, by the endless twistings and turnings of gnarled vines and stout-stemmed creepers. Clinging to the trees are choice orchids, weird in form and fantastic of colour; the dense undergrowth of browns and greens is thickly patterned with brilliant blooms; from the rich overgrowth hang vivid-hued floral streamers and festoons; gaily plumed birds are roosting amidst deepest shadows; bright blue butterflies are holding carnival in odd spots, whither stray rays of the blazing sun have been able to penetrate through chinks in the leaf-thatched, flower-strewn vault.

Evidently there are people living within these forest confines; for see, a tawny form is breaking through the bush. Come, let us hide quickly.

“This naked savage might be a cannibal!”

Possibly, but not for that reason alone have we slipped into a nook where we can watch him without risk of being discovered. Primitive man is frequently more shy than dangerous; if this aboriginal caught sight of us, perchance he would quickly plunge out of sight.

“Why does he go about with a parrot perched on his right forefinger?”

The bird is his favourite pet,

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