We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us — the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star — we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child.
I admit that my visions can never mean to other men as much as they do to me. I do not regret this. All I ask is that my results should convince seekers after truth that there is beyond doubt something worth while seeking, attainable by methods more or less like mine. I do not want to father a flock, to be the fetish of fools and fanatics, or the founder of a faith whose followers are content to echo my opinions. I want each man to cut his own way through the jungle.
[T]he organized labor movement as it is constituted today is as much a concomitant of a capitalist economy as is capital. Organized labor is predicated upon the basic premise of collective bargaining between employers and employees. This premise can obtain only for an employer-employee type of society. If the labor movement is to maintain its own identity and security, it must of necessity protect that kind of society. Radicals, on the other hand, want to advance from the jungle of laissez-faire capitalism to a world worthy of the name of human civilization. They hope for a future where the means of economic production will be owned by all of the people instead of just a comparative handful. They feel that this minority control of production facilities is injurious to the large masses of people not only because of economic monopolies but because the political power inherent in this form of centralized economy does not augur for an ever expanding democratic way of life. [ Reveille for Radicals , 1945.]
Maybe this was what life was? A series of crap that popped up like weeds, some became a jungle and some stayed in line. But pulling them constantly was becoming a chore.
I grow aware of various forms of man and of myself. I am form and I am formless, I am life and I am matter, mortal and immortal. I am one and many — myself and humanity in flux. I extend a multiple of ways in experience in space. I am myself now, lying on my back in the jungle grass, passing through the ether between satellites and stars. My aging body transmits an ageless life stream. Molecular and atomic replacement change life's composition. Molecules take part in structure and in training, countless trillions of them. After my death, the molecules of my being will return to the earth and sky. They came from the stars. I am of the stars.
There is another fallacy which appears to me to pervade the so-called "ethics of evolution." It is the notion that because, on the whole, animals and plants have advanced in perfection of organization by means of the struggle for existence and the consequent "survival of the fittest"; therefore men in society, men as ethical beings, must look to the same process to help them towards perfection. I suspect that this fallacy has arisen out of the unfortunate ambiguity of the phrase "survival of the fittest." "Fittest" has a connotation of "best"; and about "best" there hangs a moral flavour. In cosmic nature, however, what is "fittest" depends upon the conditions. Long since, I ventured to point out that if our hemisphere were to cool again, the survival of the fittest might bring about, in the vegetable kingdom, a population of more and more stunted and humbler and humbler organisms, until the "fittest" that survived might be nothing but lichens, diatoms, and such microscopic organisms as those which give red snow its colour; while, if it became hotter, the pleasant valleys of the Thames and Isis might be uninhabitable by any animated beings save those that flourish in a tropical jungle. They, as the fittest, the best adapted to the changed conditions, would survive.
Public opinion, or what passes for public opinion, is not invariably a moderating force in the jungle of politics. It may be true, and I suspect it is, that the mass of people everywhere are normally peace-loving and would accept many restraints and sacrifices in preference to the monstrous calamities of war. But I also suspect that what purports to be public opinion in most countries that consider themselves to have popular government is often not really the consensus of the feelings of the mass of the people at all, but rather the expression of the interests of special highly vocal minorities — politicians, commentators, and publicity-seekers of all sorts: people who live by their ability to draw attention to themselves and die, like fish out of water, if they are compelled to remain silent.
A prominent broadcaster, on a big-game safari in Africa, was taken to a watering hole where the life of the jungle could be observed. As he looked down from his tree platform and described the scene into his tape recorder, he saw two gnus grazing peacefully. So preoccupied were they that they failed to observe the approach of a pride of lions led by two magnificent specimens, obviously the leaders. The lions charged, killed the gnus, and dragged them into the bushes where their feasting could not be seen. A little while later the two kings of the jungle</p> emerged and the radioman recorded on his tape: "Well, that's the end of the gnus and here, once again, are the head lions."
The Great Movie Posters: KATHERINE HEPBURN as the lying, stealing, singing, preying witch girl of the Ozarks... "Low down white trash"? Maybe so -- but let her hear you say it and she'll break your head to prove herself a lady! -- Spitfire (1934) Do Native Women Live With Apes? -- Love Life of a Gorilla (1937)
When she looked into his eyes, felt his arms around her -- she
was no longer Tura, mysterious white goddess of the jungle tribes --
she was no longer the frozen-hearted high priestess under whose hypnotic
spell the worshippers of the great crocodile god meekly bowed -- she
was a girl in love!
SEE the ravening charge of the hundred scared CROCODILES!
-- Her Jungle Love (1938)
LOVE! HATE! JOY! FEAR! TORMENT! PANIC! SHAME! RAGE!
-- Intermezzo (1939)
New York is a jungle, they tell you. You could go further, and say that New York is a jungle. New York *is a jungle.* Beneath the columns of the old rain forest, made of melting macadam, the mean Limpopo of swamped Ninth Avenue bears an angry argosy of crocs and dragons, tiger fish, noise machines, sweating rainmakers. On the corners stand witchdoctors and headhunters, babbling voodoo-men -- the natives, the jungle-smart natives. And at night, under the equatorial overgrowth and heat-holding cloud cover, you hear the ragged parrot-hoot and monkeysqueak of the sirens, and then fires flower to ward off monsters. Careful: the streets are sprung with pits and nets and traps. Hire a guide. Pack your snakebite gook and your blowdart serum. Take it seriously. You have to get a bit jungle-wise. -- Martin Amis, _Money_
Home centers are designed for the do-it-yourselfer who's willing to pay higher prices for the convenience of being able to shop for lumber, hardware, and toasters all in one location. Notice I say "shop for," as opposed to "obtain." This is the major drawback of home centers: they are always out of everything except artificial Christmas trees. The home center employees have no time to reorder merchandise because they are too busy applying little price stickers to every object -- every board, washer, nail and screw -- in the entire store ... Let's say a piece in your toilet tank breaks, so you remove the broken part, take it to the home center, and ask an employee if he has a replacement. The employee, who has never is his life even seen the inside of a toilet tank, will peer at the broken part in very much the same way that a member of a primitive Amazon jungle tribe would look at an electronic calculator, and then say, "We're expecting a shipment of these sometime around the middle of next week." -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
Law of the Jungle: He who hesitates is lunch.
"Humpf!" Humpfed a voice! "For almost two days you've run wild and insisted on chatting with persons who've never existed. Such carryings-on in our peaceable
state," snapped the big kangaroo, "That your silly nonsensical game is all
through!" And the young kangaroo in her pouch said, "Me, too!"
"With the help of the Wickersham Brothers and dozens of Wickersham
Uncles and Wickersham Cousins and Wickersham In-Laws, whose help I've engaged,
You're going to be roped! And you're going to be caged! And, as for your dust
speck... Hah! That we shall boil in a hot steaming kettle of Beezle-Nut oil!"
-- Dr. Seuss "Horton Hears a Who"
In the beginning, I was made. I didn't ask to be made. No one consulted with me or considered my feelings in this matter. But if it brought some passing fancy to some lowly humans as they haphazardly pranced their way through life's mournful jungle, then so be it. - Marvin the Paranoid Android, From Douglas Adams' Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Scripts
There was once a programmer who worked upon microprocessors. "Look at how well off I am here," he said to a mainframe programmer who came to visit, "I have my own operating system and file storage device. I do not have to share my resources with anyone. The software is self-consistent and easy-to-use. Why do you not quit your present job and join me here?" The mainframe programmer then began to describe his system to his friend, saying: "The mainframe sits like an ancient sage meditating in the midst of the data center. Its disk drives lie end-to-end like a great ocean of machinery. The software is a multi-faceted as a diamond and as convoluted as a primeval jungle. The programs, each unique, move through the system like a swift-flowing river. That is why I am happy where I am." The microcomputer programmer, upon hearing this, fell silent. But the two programmers remained friends until the end of their days. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
What happens when you cut back the jungle? It recedes.
But not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien to it, but it is also a fiend to its own off-spring; worse than the Persian host who murdered his own guests; sparing not the creatures which itself hath spawned. Like a savage tigress that tossing in the jungle overlays her own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales against the rocks, and leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks of ships. No mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe.
_Forests._---The forests of Burma are the finest in British India and one of the chief assets of the wealth of the country; it is from Burma that the world draws its main supply of teak for shipbuilding, and indeed it was the demand for teak that largely led to the annexation of Burma. At the close of the First Burmese War in 1826 Tenasserim was annexed because it was supposed to contain large supplies of this valuable timber; and it was trouble with a British forest company that directly led to the Third Burmese War of 1885. Since the introduction of iron ships teak has supplanted oak, because it contains an essential oil which preserves iron and steel, instead of corroding them like the tannic acid contained in oak. The forests of Burma, therefore, are now strictly preserved by the government, and there is a regular forest department for the conservation and cutting of timber, the planting of young trees for future generations, the prevention of forest fires, and for generally supervising their treatment by the natives. In the reserves the trees of commercial value can only be cut under a licence returning a revenue to the state, while unreserved trees can be cut by the natives for home consumption. There are naturally very many trees in these forests besides the teak. In Lower Burma alone the enumeration of the trees made by Sulpiz Kurz in his _Forest Flora of British Burma_ (1877) includes some 1500 species, and the unknown species of Upper Burma and the Shan States would probably increase this total very considerably. In addition to teak, which provides the bulk of the revenue, the most valuable woods are _sha_ or cutch, india rubber, _pyingado_, or ironwood for railway sleepers, and _padauk_. Outside these reserves enormous tracts of forest and jungle still remain for clearance and cultivation, reservation being mostly confined to forest land unsuitable for crops. In 1870-1871 the state reserved forests covered only 133 sq.m., in all the Rangoon division. The total receipts from the forests then amounted to Rs.7,72,400. In 1889-1890 the total area of reserved forests in Lower Burma was 5574 sq.m., and the gross revenue was Rs.31,34,720, and the expenditure was Rs.13,31,930. The work of the forest department did not begin in Upper Burma till 1891. At the end of 1892 the reserved forests in Upper Burma amounted to 1059 sq.m. On 30th June 1896 the reserved area amounted to 5438 sq.m. At the close of 1899 the area of the reserved forests in the whole province amounted to 15,669 sq.m., and in 1903-1904 to 20,038 sq.m. with a revenue of Rs.85,19,404 and expenditure amounting to Rs.35,00,311. In 1905-1906 there were 20,545 sq.m. of reserved forest, and it is probable that when the work of reservation is complete there will be 25,000 sq.m. of preserves or 12% of the total area. Entry: 3
With the exception of a considerable area in the north, and broad tracts on the north-east and north-west sides, the whole island is occupied by jungle-covered mountains, with rich valleys between. The central range bears the name of Li-mou shan or Wu-tchi shan (the Five-Finger Mountain), and attains a height of 6000 or 7000 ft. Its praises are celebrated in a glowing ode by Ch'iu, a native poet. The island appears to be well watered, and some of its rivers are not without importance as possible highways of commerce; but the details of its hydrography are very partially ascertained. A navigable channel extends in an irregular curve from the bay of Hoi-how (Hai-K'ow) in the north to Tan-chow on the west coast. Being exposed to the winter monsoon, the northern parts of the island enjoy much the same sort of temperate climate as the neighbouring provinces of the mainland, but in the southern parts, protected from the monsoon by the mountain ranges, the climate is almost or entirely tropical. Snow falls so rarely that its appearance in 1684 is reported in the native chronicles as a remarkable event. Earthquakes are a much more familiar phenomenon, having occurred, according to the same authority, in 1523, 1526, 1605, 1652, 1677, 1681, 1684, 1702, 1704, 1725, 1742, 1816, 1817 and 1822. Excellent timber of various kinds--eagle-wood, rose-wood, liquidambar, &c.--is one of the principal products of the island, and has even been specially transported to Peking for imperial purposes. The coco palm flourishes freely even in the north, and is to be found growing in clumps with the _Pinus sinensis_. Rice, cotton, sugar, indigo, cinnamon, betel-nuts, sweet potatoes, ground-nuts and tobacco are all cultivated in varying quantities. The aboriginal inhabitants collect a kind of tea called t'ien ch'a, or celestial tea, which looks like the leaves of a wild camellia, and has an earthy taste when infused. Lead, silver, copper and iron occur in the Shi-lu shan or "stone-green-hill"; the silver at least was worked till 1850. Gold and lapis lazuli are found in other parts of the island. Entry: HAINAN
_Fauna_.--The fauna of Borneo comprises a large variety of species, many of which are numerically of great importance. Among the quadrupeds the most remarkable is the orang-utan (Malay, _ôrang ûtan_, i.e. jungle man), as the huge ape, called _mias_ or _mâyas_ by the natives, is named by Europeans. Numerous species of monkey are found in Borneo, including the wahwah, a kind of gibbon, a creature far more human in appearance and habits than the orang-utan, and several _Semnopitheci_, such as the long-nosed ape and the golden-black or _chrysomelas_. The large-eyed _Stenops tardigradus_ also deserves mention. The larger beasts of prey are not met with, and little check is therefore put on the natural fecundity of the graminivorous species. A small panther and the clouded tiger (so called)--_Felis macroscelis_--are the largest animals of the cat kind that occur in Borneo. The Bengal tiger is not found. The Malay or honey-bear is very common. The rhinoceros and the elephant both occur in the northern part of the island, though both are somewhat rare, and in this connexion it should be noted that the distribution of quadrupeds as between Borneo, Sumatra and the Malayan Peninsula is somewhat peculiar and seemingly somewhat capricious. Many quadrupeds, such as the honey-bear and the rhinoceros, are common to all, but while the tiger is common both in the Malayan Peninsula and in Sumatra, it does not occur in Borneo; the elephant, so common in the peninsula, and found in Borneo, is unknown in Sumatra; and the orang-utan, so plentiful in parts of Borneo and parts of Sumatra, has never been discovered in the Malay Peninsula. It has been suggested, but with very scant measure of probability, that the existence of elephants in Borneo, whose confinement to a single district is remarkable and unexplained, is due to importation; and the fact is on record that when Magellan's ships visited Brunei in 1522 tame elephants were in use at the court of the sultan of Brunei. Wild oxen of the Sunda race, not to be in any way confounded with the Malayan _seladang_ or gaur, are rare, but the whole country swarms with wild swine, and the _babirusa_, a pig with curious horn-like tusks, is not uncommon. Alligators are found in most of the rivers, and the gavial is less frequently met with. Three or four species of deer are common, including the mouse-deer, or _plandok_, an animal of remarkable grace and beauty, about the size of a hare but considerably less heavy. Squirrels, flying-squirrels, porcupines, civet-cats, rats, bats, flying-foxes and lizards are found in great variety; snakes of various kinds, from the boa-constrictor downward, are abundant, while the forests swarm with tree-leeches, and the marshes with horse-leeches and frogs. A remarkable flying-frog was discovered by Professor A.R. Wallace. Birds are somewhat rare in some quarters. The most important are eagles, kites, vultures, falcons, owls, horn-bills, cranes, pheasants (notably the argus, fire-back and peacock-pheasants), partridges, ravens, crows, parrots, pigeons, woodpeckers, doves, snipe, quail and swallows. Of most of these birds several varieties are met with. The _Cypselus esculentus_, or edible-nest swift, is very common, and the nests, which are built mostly in limestone caves, are esteemed the best in the archipelago. Mosquitoes and sand-flies are the chief insect pests, and in some districts are very troublesome. Several kinds of parasitic jungle ticks cause much annoyance to men and to beasts. There are also two kinds of ants, the semut âpi ("fire ant") and the _semut lâda_ ("pepper ant"), whose bites are peculiarly painful. Hornets, bees and wasps of many varieties abound. The honey and the wax of the wild bee are collected by the natives. Butterflies and moths are remarkable for their number, size, variety and beauty. Beetles are no less numerously represented, as is to be expected in a country so richly wooded as Borneo. The swamps and rivers, as well as the surrounding seas, swarm with fish. The _siawan_ is a species of fish found in the rivers and valued for its spawn, which is salted. The natives are expert and ingenious fishermen. Turtles, trepang and pearl-shell are of some commercial importance. Entry: BORNEO
GONDA, a town and district of British India, in the Fyzabad division of the United Provinces. The town is 28 m. N.W. of Fyzabad, and is an important junction on the Bengal & North-Western railway. The site on which it stands was originally a jungle, in the centre of which was a cattle-fold (_Gontha_ or _Gothah_), where the cattle were enclosed at night as a protection against wild beasts, and from this the town derives its name. Pop. (1901) 15,811. The cantonments were abandoned in 1863. Entry: GONDA
KIPLING, RUDYARD (1865- ), British author, was born in Bombay on the 30th of December 1865. His father, John Lockwood Kipling (1837-1911), an artist of considerable ability, was from 1875 to 1893 curator of the Lahore museum in India. His mother was Miss Alice Macdonald of Birmingham, two of whose sisters were married respectively to Sir E. Burne-Jones and Sir Edward Poynter. He was educated at the United Services College, Westward Ho, North Devon, of which a somewhat lurid account is given in his story _Stalky and Co._ On his return to India he became at the age of seventeen the sub-editor of the Lahore _Civil and Military Gazette_. In 1886, in his twenty-first year, he published _Departmental Ditties_, a volume of light verse chiefly satirical, only in two or three poems giving promise of his authentic poetical note. In 1887 he published _Plain Tales from the Hills_, a collection mainly of the stories contributed to his own journal. During the next two years he brought out, in six slim paper-covered volumes of Wheeler's Railway Library (Allahabad), _Soldiers Three_, _The Story of the Gadsbys_, _In Black and White_, _Under the Deodars_, _The Phantom 'Rickshaw_ and _Wee Willie Winkee_, at a rupee apiece. These were in form and substance a continuation of the _Plain Tales_. This series of tales, all written before the author was twenty-four, revealed a new master of fiction. A few, but those the best, he afterwards said that his father gave him. The rest were the harvest of his own powers of observation vitalized by imagination. In method they owed something to Bret Harte; in matter and spirit they were absolutely original. They were unequal, as his books continued to be throughout; the sketches of Anglo-Indian social life being generally inferior to the rest. The style was to some extent disfigured by jerkiness and mannered tricks. But Mr Kipling possessed the supreme spell of the story-teller to entrance and transport. The freshness of the invention, the variety of character, the vigour of narrative, the raciness of dialogue, the magic of atmosphere, were alike remarkable. The soldier-stories, especially the exuberant vitality of the cycle which contains the immortal Mulvaney, established the author's fame throughout the world. The child-stories and tales of the British official were not less masterly, while the tales of native life and of adventure "beyond the pale" disclosed an even finer and deeper vein of romance. India, which had been an old story for generations of Englishmen, was revealed in these brilliant pictures as if seen for the first time in its variety, colour and passion, vivid as mirage, enchanting as the _Arabian Nights_. The new author's talent was quickly recognized in India, but it was not till the books reached England that his true rank was appreciated and proclaimed. Between 1887 and 1889 he travelled through India, China, Japan and America, finally arriving in England to find himself already famous. His travel sketches, contributed to _The Civil and Military Gazette_ and _The Pioneer_, were afterwards collected (the author's hand having been forced by unauthorized publication) in the two volumes _From Sea to Sea_ (1899). A further set of Indian tales, equal to the best, appeared in _Macmillan's Magazine_ and were republished with others in _Life's Handicap_ (1891). In _The Light that Failed_ (1891, after appearing with a different ending in _Lippincott's Magazine_) Mr Kipling essayed his first long story (dramatized 1905), but with comparative unsuccess. In his subsequent work his delight in the display of descriptive and verbal technicalities grew on him. His polemic against "the sheltered life" and "little Englandism" became more didactic. His terseness sometimes degenerated into abruptness and obscurity. But in the meanwhile his genius became prominent in verse. Readers of the _Plain Tales_ had been impressed by the snatches of poetry prefixed to them for motto, certain of them being subscribed "Barrack Room Ballad." Mr Kipling now contributed to the _National Observer_, then edited by W. E. Henley, a series of _Barrack Room Ballads_. These vigorous verses in soldier slang, when published in a book in 1892, together with the fine ballad of "East and West" and other poems, won for their author a second fame, wider than he had attained as a story-teller. In this volume the Ballads of the "Bolivar" and of the "Clampherdown," introducing Mr Kipling's poetry of the ocean and the engine-room, and "The Flag of England," finding a voice for the Imperial sentiment, which--largely under the influence of Mr Kipling's own writings--had been rapidly gaining force in England, gave the key-note of much of his later verse. In 1898 Mr Kipling paid the first of several visits to South Africa and became imbued with a type of imperialism that reacted on his literature, not altogether to its advantage. Before finally settling in England Mr Kipling lived some years in America and married in 1892 Miss Caroline Starr Balestier, sister of the Wolcott Balestier to whom he dedicated _Barrack Room Ballads_, and with whom in collaboration he wrote the _Naulahka_ (1891), one of his less successful books. The next collection of stories, _Many Inventions_ (1893), contained the splendid Mulvaney extravaganza, "My Lord the Elephant"; a vividly realized tale of metempsychosis, "The Finest Story in the World"; and in that fascinating tale "In the Rukh," the prelude to the next new exhibition of the author's genius. This came in 1894 with _The Jungle Book_, followed in 1895 by _The Second Jungle Book_. With these inspired beast-stories Kipling conquered a new world and a new audience, and produced what many critics regard as his most flawless work. His chief subsequent publications were _The Seven Seas_ (poems), 1896; _Captains Courageous_ (a yarn of deep-sea fishery), 1897; _The Day's Work_ (collected stories), 1898; _A Fleet in Being_ (an account of a cruise in a man-of-war), 1898; _Stalky and Co._ (mentioned above), 1899; _From Sea to Sea_ (mentioned above), 1899; _Kim_, 1901; _Just So Stories_ (for children), 1902; _The Five Nations_ (poems, concluding with what proved Mr Kipling's most universally known and popular poem, "Recessional," originally published in _The Times_ on the 17th of July 1897 on the occasion of Queen Victoria's second jubilee), 1903; _Traffics and Discoveries_ (collected stories), 1904; _Puck of Pook's Hill_ (stories), 1906; _Actions and Reactions_ (stories), 1909. Of these _Kim_ was notable as far the most successful of Mr Kipling's longer narratives, though it is itself rather in the nature of a string of episodes. But everything he wrote, even to a farcical extravaganza inspired by his enthusiasm for the motor-car, breathed the meteoric energy that was the nature of the man. A vigorous and unconventional poet, a pioneer in the modern phase of literary Imperialism, and one of the rare masters in English prose of the art of the short story, Mr Kipling had already by the opening of the 20th century won the most conspicuous place among the creative literary forces of his day. His position in English literature was recognized in 1907 by the award to him of the Nobel prize. Entry: KIPLING