VEGETABLE CORDAGE. 217 



give an average progress hardly exceeding 3^ miles 

 per* day, without making any deductions for halts and 

 days of rest. * 



The lofty trees of the equatorial forest, according to 

 the same authority, frequently attain two hundred feet in 

 height, and not only overshadow the earth with their 

 own thickly interlacing branches and foliage, but also 

 act as natural pillars, which support in addition a truly 

 enormous mass of parasitic vegetation ; so that, in many 

 cases, the foliage of the tree itself bears but a small 

 proportion to the vast collection of overgrowing creepers 

 and parasites with which every part of the trunk, limbs, 

 and crown, are often covered. 



These creepers and plants are of all sorts and sizes, 

 some of them adhering closely to the standard tree, 

 after the manner of ivy in our own country; whilst 

 others hang from the branches entirely clear of the 

 trunks, and form regular natural cordage, varying in 

 thickness from that of ordinary twine to monstrous 

 growths, which greatly exceed the largest ship's hawser 

 in thickness, and represent enormous twisted cables, 

 as thick as, or thicker than, a man's thigh. A great deal 

 of this mass of cordage descends from great heights, 

 and seems to have no foliage upon it, as far as the 

 eye can reach ; it is only where the creeper has ascended 

 out of the gloomy depths of the forest into the brilliant 

 sunshine, which glows with unsurpassed splendour 

 upon the tree-tops, that it spreads itself forth in a mass 

 of tangled verdure, burying everything under a sea 

 of foliage. 



These masses of climbing plants are known through- 



* See Mr. Stanley's speech at the meeting of the R.G.S. reported 

 in the Times of May 6, 1890. 



