44 JUNGLE ISLAND 



faster, but I found only one place on the island 

 where I had to use it all the time. This was in 

 a patch of wild pineapple, higher than a man's 

 head, where it took four or five strokes of the 

 machete to cut one step through the stiff 

 leaves. 



My tree stood in a part of the jungle that was 

 like most of the rest of the island. The plants did 

 not grow so thickly as they did down at the shore, 

 because the big trees shut off most of the sunlight. 

 The red clay forest floor was loosely covered with 

 dead leaves, and over it flecks of sunlight moved 

 through the middle of the day, seldom staying in 

 one spot more than a few minutes, but touching 

 everything below at some time. All the low- 

 growing bushes and ferns had a short time of sun 

 for their broad green leaves, but not so much as 

 to dry them out. A few flowers grew among the 

 ferns in January. I saw a familiar milkweed 

 whose flower makes a good insect trap, and the 

 brilliant red blossom of the passion vine, which 

 grows also in the southern United States. There 

 were ferns like those we grow in our houses, as 

 well as fern bushes six feet high and graceful 

 fern vines (Fig. 21). 



The greatest difference between this jungle 

 wood and the forest of a cooler country was the 

 great number of palms. Some were only shrubs 

 that could be cut as easily as a cornstalk. Some 

 grew sixty feet tall, as straight as a rod, and were 



