chap. XI. BEE^HUNTERS. 263 



simple enough. The bees' nests hang from the 

 boughs of the trees, and a man ascends with a torch 

 of green leaves, which creates a dense smoke. He 

 approaches the nest and smokes off the swarm, which, 

 on quitting the exterior of the comb, exposes a beau- 

 tiful circular mass of honey and wax, generally about 

 eighteen inches in diameter and six inches thick. 

 The bee-hunter being provided with vessels formed 

 from the rind of the gourd attached to ropes, now cuts 

 up the comb and fills his chatties, lowering them down 

 to his companions below. 



When the blossom of the nillho fades, the seed 

 forms ; this is a sweet little kernel, with the flavour of 

 a nut. The bees now leave the country, and the jun- 

 gles suddenly swarm, as though by magic, with pigeons, 

 jungle-fowl, and rats. At length the seed is shed and 

 the nillho dies. 



The jungles then have a curious appearance. The 

 underwood being dead, the forest-trees rise from a 

 mass of dry sticks like thin hop-poles. The roots of 

 these plants very soon decay, and a few weeks of high 

 wind, howling through the forest, levels the whole mass, 

 leaving the trees standing free from underwood. The 

 appearance of the ground can now be imagined — a 

 perfect chaos of dead sticks and poles, piled one on 

 the other, in every direction, to a depth of between 

 two and three feet. It can only be compared to a 

 mass of hurdles being laid in a heap. The young 



