OPEN CLEARING AND SECONDGROWTH 59 



Differences in soil which were not apparent when the 

 great jungle covered everything, now became of much im- 

 portance and gave rise to very distinct zones of vegetation. 

 We found high sandy spots where the cecropias did not get 

 that flying start which they needed for their vertical straight- 

 away dash. Here a community of hollow reeds or bamboo 

 grass appeared from no one knows where. They grew and 

 multiplied until their stems fairly touched one another, 

 forming a dense, impenetrable thicket of green, silicious 

 tubes eight to twelve feet in length. These were smooth 

 and hard as glass and tapered beautifully, making wonder- 

 fully light and strong arrows with which the Akawai Indians 

 shot fish. Wasps of sorts searched for broken tips and in- 

 dustriously gathered therein hordes of delectable spiders. 



Early in this struggle, white convolvulus blossoms 

 gleamed everywhere, but later, pale yellow flowers became 

 dominant, and orchid-like, violet butterfly peas which, at 

 first, blossomed among the ashes on the ground, but climbed 

 as soon as they found support. Little by little a five-finger 

 vine flung whole chains of bloom over stumps, logs and 

 bushes, a beautiful blood-red passion flower, whose buds 

 looked like strings of tiny Chinese lanterns. 



Whatever the character of the new vegetation, whether 

 a tangle of various shrubs, a grove of young cecropias or a 

 serried phalanx of reeds, the terrible razor-grass ran over 

 all. Gracefully it hung in emerald loops from branch to 

 branch, festooning living foliage and dead stump alike, with 

 masses of slender blades. It appeared soft and loose-hung 

 as if one could brush it away with a sweep of the hand. But 

 it was the most punishing of all growing things, insidiously 

 cutting to the bone as one grasped it, and binding all this 

 new growth together with bands more efficient than steel. 

 One had painfully to cut every yard of trail in order to pene- 

 trate into the higher parts of the secondgrowth, which was 

 infinitely more difficult of access than any thorn thicket or 

 tangle of bush rope in the jungle itself. 



