The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 310: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE TIGER 281 presented the singular aspect of a perfect desert in the midst of all the surrounding wild, rank, and luxuriant ver- dure. How this utter desolation on that spot could possibly be, the man suspected not, but it no doubt arose from some volcanic action, which geologists could satisfactorily explain. Here the Burker resolved to lie down and rest himself for the night, for though he could scarcely deem himself secure from roaming wild beasts, yet he at least fancied he was safe against the insidious attacks of reptiles, and surrounded by so many frightful perils as he was, it naturally appeared a consolation to have even a portion of them for the time miti- gated or set at rest. The dusk closed in around him, or rather, we should say, as much of dusk as there was in that clime and at that season of the year, and the Burker slept. How long he had slum- bered he knew not, but he was awakened by the most frightful din. The whole jungle seemed alive with horrible noises, the howls, the cries, and the yells of wild beasts all mingling in one appalling and stupendous chorus. The wretched man started up with his hair standing on end, his frame quivering violently, and his heart palpitating with such force that it seemed as if it must burst. He listened in awful consternation; he could catch the sounds of objects rushing amongst the underwood and the long, rank grass which bounded the desert place that he had chosen for his home during the night. It seemed as if death in some frightful shape must every minute overtake him, and imagination can conceive nothing more horrible than the din by which he was environed. For all the living things in that jungle to be thus disporting, gamboling, quarreling, or fighting, was something more than the human brain could endure. He felt as if he were going mad; a terrible bewil- derment seized upon him, he rushed hither and thither, until at length he sank down completely exhausted, and his senses abandoned him. When he came back to consciousness, the sun was rising above the distant trees; the jungle was all completely quiet once more. The heat soon became so intense that it ap- peared to extinguish every trace of life save that of the Burker’s only. But even the smallest insects which had swarmed during the night had now vanished, and the atmosphere seemed dead with its heavy, immovable, torrid CORnNICLOOKS (S©)