ROBBER Y AND MURDER. 235 



are the works of the average plant, as far as it can 

 practise them. So by the time the Bamboo- Vine 

 makes up its mind, it will have discovered, by the 

 experience of many generations, the value of the 

 proverb — ' Never do for yourself what you can get 

 another to do for you,' and will have developed into 

 a true high climber, selfish and insolent, choking 

 and strangling, like yonder beautiful green pest, of 

 which beware — namely, a tangle of Razor- grass 

 {Scleria flagelhmi). The brother, in old times, of 

 that broad-leaved Sedge which carries the shot-seeds, 

 it has long since found it more profitable to lean on 

 others than to stand on its own legs, and has de- 

 veloped itself accordingly. It has climbed up the 

 shrubs some fifteen feet, and is now tumbling down 

 again in masses of purest deep green, which are 

 always softly rounded, because each slender leaf is 

 sabre-shaped, and always curves inwards and down- 

 wards into the mass, presenting to the passer thousands 

 of minute saw-edges, hard enough and sharp enough to 

 cut clothes, skin, and flesh to ribbons, if it is brushed 

 in the direction of the leaves. For shape and colour 

 few plants would look more lovely in a hot-house ; 

 but it would soon need to be confined in a den by 

 itself, like a jaguar or an alligator!" 



Even more to the point raised in this chapter is 

 Kingsley's reference to a confirmed strangler : " He 

 will look up, with something like a malediction, at 

 the Matapolo, which, every fifty yards, have seized on 



