the pig had provided more interest and amusement 

 than much bigger game might have done, and on the 

 whole, although disappointed, we were not dissatisfied : 

 in fact, it would have needed an ungrateful spirit 

 indeed to feel discontented in such surroundings. 



Big trees of many kinds and shapes united to make 

 a canopy of leaves overhead through which only occa- 

 sional shafts of sunlight struck. The cold mountain 

 stream tumbling over ledges, swirling among rocks 

 or rippling over pebble-strewn reaches, gurgled, 

 splashed and bubbled with that wonderful medley of 

 sounds that go to make the lullaby of the brook. The 

 floor of the forest was carpeted with a pile of staghorn 

 moss a foot thick, and maidenhair fern grew every- 

 where with the luxuriant profusion of weeds in a 

 tropical garden. Traveller's Joy covered whole trees 

 with dense creamy bloom and spread its fragrance 

 everywhere ; wild clematis trailed over stumps and 

 fallen branches ; quantities of maidenhair over- 

 flowed the banks and drooped to the water all along 

 the course of the stream ; whilst, marshalled on 

 either side, huddled together on little islands, perched 

 on rocks, and grouped on overhanging ledges, stood 

 the tree-ferns as though they had come to drink 

 their wide-reaching delicate fronds like giant green 

 ostrich-feathers waving gently to each breath of air 

 or quivering as the movement of the water shook the 

 trunks. 



Long-tailed greeny-gray monkeys with black faces 

 peered down at us, moving lightly on their branch 

 trapezes, and pulled faces or chattered their indignant 



268 



