.

UNDER THE LINE.
Enough of simpering and grimace, Enough of vacuity, trimmed with lace.
"Curse this country! Curse it--curse it!" The man spoke aloud, but there was no one near to hear.

He shook his skinny yellow fist out over the broad river that crept greasily down to the equatorial sea.
All around him the vegetable kingdom had asserted its sovereignty.

At his back loomed a dense forest, impenetrable to the foot of man, defying his puny hand armed with axe or saw.

The trees were not high, few of them being above twenty feet, but from their branches creepers and parasites hung in tangled profusion, interlaced, joining tree to tree for acres, nay for miles.
As far as the eye could reach either bank of the slow river was thus covered with rank vegetation--mile after mile without variety, without hope.