24 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



clumps needed clearing of old stems, and for two 

 days we indulged in the strangest of weeding^'. 

 The dead stems were as hard as stone outside, but 

 the ax bit through easily, and they were so light 

 that we could easily carry enormous ones, which 

 made us feel like giants, though, when I thought 

 of them in their true botanical relationship, I 

 dwarfed in imagination as quickly as Alice, to a 

 pigmy tottering under a blade of grass. It was 

 like a Brobdingnagian game of jack-straws, as 

 the cutting or prying loose of a single stem often 

 brought several others crashing to earth in unex- 

 pected places, keeping us running and dodging to 

 avoid their terrific impact. The fall of these 

 great masts awakened a roaring swish ending in 

 a hollow rattling, wholly unlike the crash and 

 dull boom of a solid trunk. When we finished 

 with each clump, it stood as a perfect giant bou* 

 quet, looking, at a distance, like a tuft of green 

 feathery plumes, with the bungalow snuggled 

 beneath as a toadstool is overshadowed bv ferns. 

 Scores of the homes of small folk were uncov- 

 ered by our weeding out — wasps, termites, ants, 

 bees, wood-roaches, centipedes; and occasionally 

 a small snake or great solemn toad came out from 

 the debris at the roots, the latter blinking and 



