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Updated: June 23, 2025
Our night, as often happens in the Tropics, was not altogether undisturbed; for, shortly after I had become unconscious of the chorus of toads and cicadas, my hammock came down by the head. Then I was woke by a sudden bark close outside, exactly like that of a clicketting fox; but as the dogs did not reply or give chase, I presumed it to be the cry of a bird, possibly a little owl.
He kicked, shook them off, hammered his fists right and left, and ran free, with a strange conviction that to-night he was invincible. Stranger still, as the bamboo leaves now and then brushed his bare forehead, he missed the sharp music of her cicadas. The looming of a wall checked him.
The cicadas, therefore, were duly pinched and then let loose; like squibs and rockets they careered among the congregation, dashing in our faces and clinging to our garments; the church resounded like an olive-copse at noon. A hot little hand conveyed one of these tremulously throbbing creatures into my own, and obeying a whispered injunction of "Let it fly, sir!"
The hum of the cicadas was still, and dozens of rabbits, tempted out by the cool of the twilight, scuttled across my path and hid in the ferns. I wished the harness had not broken, as I feared it would put a clincher on my being allowed out driving alone in future. Joe Slocombe, the man who acted as groom and rouseabout, was waiting for me at the entrance gate.
At night other sounds are heard, less agreeable to the ear: the shrill "chirrup" of cicadas and tree-toads ringing so incessantly, that only when they cease do you become conscious of their existence; the dull "gluck-gluck" of the great bullfrog; the sharp cries of the heron and qua-bird; and the sepulchral screech of the great horned owl.
The deeps of the sky are mottled with singing wings of every color and tone clouds of brilliant chrysididae dancing and swirling in joyous rhythm, golden-barred vespidae, butterflies, grating cicadas and jolly rattling grasshoppers fairly enameling the light, and shaking all the air into music.
On the very top of the hill is a little old church surrounded by cypresses and acacias, and as the sun, about to vanish within the folds of the cloudy pall that is already drawn up to its flaming edge, darts burning rays upon the still motionless leaves, the cicadas again scratch out their note with the blind zeal of fiddlers who have made too merry at the marriage-feast.
The chirrup of the cicadas alone hindered me from hearing all of what was said; but many words reached my ear, and with sufficient distinctness, to give me a clue to the subject of the promised revelation. Delicacy would have prompted me to retire a little farther off; but the singular caution I had received from my companion, prevented me from obeying its impulse.
The figures move quietly and speak softly, and the air is full of the rattle of crickets or cicadas and a pleasant scent of night flowers, and cheroot smoke, with a whiff of old ocean. We wait and chat outside with acquaintances, and some ladies practise curtseys whilst the natives are being received the coloured man first, the white man and his womenfolk when they may!
The dauntless little creatures at once recommenced their "dzig, dzig, dzig," in their novel environment, and kept it up uninterruptedly for twenty-four hours, in spite of the lack of appreciation of my family, who complained that their night's rest had been seriously interfered with by the unaccustomed noise. Next evening the cicadas were silent.
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