Probably I had already grown confused before deviating and turned the wrong way, for instead of finding the forest easier, it grew closer and more difficult as I advanced.

Before many minutes the darkness so increased that I could no longer distinguish objects more than five feet from my eyes.

Groping blindly along, I became entangled in a dense undergrowth, and after struggling and stumbling along for some distance in vain endeavours to get through it, I came to a stand at last in sheer despair.

All sense of direction was now lost: I was entombed in thick blackness--blackness of night and cloud and rain and of dripping foliage and network of branches bound with bush ropes and creepers in a wild tangle.

I had struggled into a hollow, or hole, as it were, in the midst of that mass of vegetation, where I could stand upright and turn round and round without touching anything; but when I put out my hands they came into contact with vines and bushes.