I gazed across the waste of wild waters; I watched the whispering willows; I heard the ceaseless beating of the tireless wind; and, one and all, each in its own way, stirred in me this sensation of a strange distress.  But the willows especially:  for ever they went on chattering and talking among themselves, laughing a little, shrilly crying out, sometimes sighing—­but what it was they made so much to-do about belonged to the secret life of the great plain they inhabited.  And it was utterly alien to the world I knew, or to that of the wild yet kindly elements.  They made me think of a host of beings from another plane of life, another evolution altogether, perhaps, all discussing a mystery known only to themselves.  I watched them moving busily together, oddly shaking their big bushy heads, twirling their myriad leaves even when there was no wind.  They moved of their own will as though alive, and they touched, by some incalculable method, my own keen sense of the horrible.

There they stood in the moonlight, like a vast army surrounding our camp, shaking their innumerable silver spears defiantly, formed all ready for an attack.

The psychology of places, for some imaginations at least, is very vivid; for the wanderer, especially, camps have their “note” either of welcome or rejection.  At first it may not always be apparent, because the busy preparations of tent and cooking prevent, but with the first pause—­after supper usually—­it comes and announces itself.  And the note of this willow-camp now became unmistakably plain to me:  we were interlopers, trespassers, we were not welcomed.  The sense of unfamiliarity grew upon me as I stood there watching.  We touched the frontier of a region where our presence was resented.  For a night’s lodging we might perhaps be tolerated; but for a prolonged and inquisitive stay—­No! by all the gods of the trees and the wilderness, no!  We were the first human influences upon this island, and we were not wanted. The willows were against us.

Strange thoughts like these, bizarre fancies, borne I know not whence, found lodgment in my mind as I stood listening.  What, I thought, if, after all, these crouching willows proved to be alive; if suddenly they should rise up, like a swarm of living creatures, marshaled by the gods whose territory we had invaded, sweep towards us off the vast swamps, booming overhead in the night—­and then settle down!  As I looked it was so easy to imagine they actually moved, crept nearer, retreated a little, huddled together in masses, hostile, waiting for the great wind that should finally start them a-running.  I could have sworn their aspect changed a little, and their ranks deepened and pressed more closely together.