And if in the midst of this unfamiliar landscape the ringing of a cowbell, or the bellowing of a bull, reached our ears from without a gorge, then all at once the thought of home arose within us. It was as if we had heard voices from far, far away, that called down towards us across the ocean and transported us by a magic power from one hemisphere to another. How wonderfully agile is man's power of imagination, that eternal source of his delight and merriment. The forest animals hide themselves within the thicket, the birds slip between the leaves of the trees or cracks in the rocks. But if ones listens into the apparent deep silence for the quietest sounds the air bears to our ears, one hears a muffled whirring, a deadening buzzing and humming of the insects, with which all the lower aerial layers teem.
Nothing can more vividly reveal the extent and power of the organic realm.
Myriad insects crawl upon the ground or flutter about the sun-dried vegetation. A turmoil of sound can be heard from every bush, from rotting tree trunks, from cracks between the rocks and from the ground, through which lizards and centipedes and cecilias burrow. As many voices call to us that all of nature is breathing, that life prevails in a thousand forms in the dusty, furrowed earth, as do so from the bosom of the sea and from the air which surrounds us. Every place has its own distinctive sound picture, supplementing our own personal history, our social history and that of the world in general with important information. On hearing, re-hearing or remembering them, we feel a deep sense of belonging.