CH, x] THE GREAT FOREST 245 



of bird or aninial lite. A troop ol' long-haired })lack and 

 white monkeys bounded away among the tree-tops. 

 Here and there brilliant flowers lightened the gloom. 

 We ducked under vines and climbed over fallen timber. 

 Poisonous nettles stung our hands. We w^ere drenched 

 by the w^et boughs which we brushed aside. Mosses 

 and ferns grew rank and close. The trees were of 

 strange kinds. There were huge trees with little leaves, 

 and small trees with big leaves. There were trees with 

 bare, Heshy limbs, that writhed out through the 

 neighbom-ing branches, bearing sparse clusters of large 

 frondage. In places the forest was low, the trees tliirty 

 or forty feet high, the bushes that choked the ground 

 between, fifteen or twenty feet higli. In other places 

 mighty monarchs of the wood, straight and tall, towered 

 aloft to an innnense height ; among them were trees 

 Avhose smooth, round boles were spotted like sycamores, 

 while far above our heads their gracefully spreading 

 branches were hung with vines like mistletoe and 

 draped with Spanish moss ; trees whose surfaces w^ere 

 corrugated and knotted as if they were made of bimdles 

 of great creepers ; and giants whose buttressed trunks 

 were four times a man's length across. 



Twice we got on elephant spoor, once of a single 

 bull, once of a party of three. Then Cuninghame and 

 the 'Xdorobo redoubled their caution. They would 

 minutely examine the fresh dung ; and above all they 

 continually tested the wind, scanning the tree-tops, and 

 lighting matches to see from the smoke what the eddies 

 were near the ground. Each time, after an hour's 

 stealthy stepping and crawling along the twisted trail a 

 slight shift of the wind in the almost still air gave cur 

 scent to the game, and away it went before we could 

 catch a glimpse of it ; and we resumed our walk. The 



