104 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. [Part I 



highest trees, and hang down in the most fantastic bunches. 

 Its stem, hke that of another plant of the same genus (the 

 Vitis Indica), when freshly cut, jields a copious draught 

 of pure tasteless fluid, and is eagerly sought after by ele- 

 phants. 



But it is the trees of older and loftier growth that 

 exhibit the rank luxuriance of these wonderful epiphytes 

 in the most striking manner. They are tormented by 

 climbing plants of such extraordinary dimensions that 

 many of them exceed in diameter the girth of a man ; 

 and tliese gigantic appendages are to be seen surmount- 

 ing the tallest trees of the forest, gi'asping their stems 

 in firm convolutions, and then flinging their monstrous 

 tendiils over the larger hmbs till they reach the top, 

 whence they descend to the ground in huge festoons, 

 and, after including another and another tree in their 

 successive toils, they once more ascend to the summit, 

 and wind the wdiole into a maze of hving network as 

 massy as if formed by the cable of a hne-of-battle sliip, 

 Wlien, by-and-by, the trees on which this singular fabric 

 has become suspended give way under its weight, or sink 

 by their own decay, the fallen trunk speedily disappears, 

 whilst the convolutions of climbers continue to grow 

 on, exhibiting one of the most marvellous and pecu- 

 liar living mounds of confusion that it is possible to 

 fancy. Frequently one of these creepers may be seen 

 holding by one extremity the summit of a tall tree, 

 and grasping with the other an object at some distance 

 near the eartli, between which it is strained as tight 

 and straight as if hauled over a block. In all probability 

 the young tendril had l^een oi'iginally fixed in this 

 position by the wind, and retained in it till it had gained 

 its maturity, where it has the appearance of having 

 been artificially arranged as if to support a falhng 

 tree. 



This peculiarity of tropical vegetation has been 

 turned to profitable account by the Ceylon woodmen, 

 employed by the European planters in felling forest 



