All that he felt was the misery of a new misfortune, and, as was his nature, he sat dumb under it.

It was not in Babehami’s nature to remain long openly an enemy of anyone. His cunning mind was inclined to, and suited for, intrigue. He understood how much easier – and more enjoyable – it is to harm your enemy, if he thinks that you are his friend, rather than if he knows you are his enemy.

while the animals have their seasons, man alone is perpetually dominated by his desires.

It is what usually happens in the jungle – to women especially – the mind dies before the body. Imperceptibly the power of initiative, of thought, of feeling, dies out before the monotony of life, the monotony of the tearing hot wind, the monotony of endless trees, the monotony of perpetual hardship. It will happen at an age when in other climates a man is in his prime, and a woman still bears children. The man will still help at the work in the chena, cutting down the undergrowth and sowing the crop; but he will do so unthinking, without feeling, like a machine or an animal; and when it is done he will sit hour after hour in his compound staring with his filmy eyes into nothing, motionless, except when he winds one long thin arm round himself, like a grey monkey, and scratches himself on the back. And the woman still carries the waterpot to the muddy pool to fetch water; still cooks the meal in the house. While they still stand upright, they must do their work; they eat and they sleep; they mutter frequently to themselves; but they do not speak to others, and no one speaks to them. They live in a twilight, where even pain is scarcely felt.